Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The Dismal Fate of New Nations 9781501725425

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
CHAPTER ONE. Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity
CHAPTER TWO. Iran and Egypt
CHAPTER THREE. India
CHAPTER FOUR. Brazil
CHAPTER FIVE. Mexico
CHAPTER SIX. China
CHAPTER SEVEN. Russia and Ukraine
CHAPTER EIGHT. Is Nationalism Obsolete?
Index

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Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress Volume

2

A volume in the series

Cornell Studies in Political Economy EDITED BY PETER J. KATZENSTEIN

A full list of titles in the series appears at the end of the book.

Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress Volume 2 THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

ERNST

B. HAAS

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

The publisher gratefully acknowledges a grant from the University of California, Berkeley, that aided in bringing this book to publication. Copyright © 2000 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2000 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haas, Ernst B. Nationalism, liberalism, and progress / Ernst B. Haas. p. cm.—(Cornell studies in political economy) Includes index. Contents: v. 1. The rise and decline of nationalism ISBN 0-8014-3108-5 (cloth : alk. paper : v. 1) 1. World politics-1989— 2. Nationalism—History—loth century. 3. Liberalism—History—loth. century. I. Title. II. Series. D86o.H33 1997 320.54-41c21 96-48439 v. 2. The dismal fate of new nations o-8o14-31o9-3 (cloth : alk. paper : v. 2) Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. Books that bear the logo of the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) use paper taken from forests that have been inspected and certified as meeting the highest standards for environmental and social responsibility. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing

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9876543

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Contents

Preface 1. Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity 2. Iran and Egypt 3. India 4. Brazil 5. Mexico 6. China 7. Russia and Ukraine 8. Is Nationalism Obsolete? Index

vii 1 46 1 to 161 216

259 324 411 455

Preface

The 196os were dominated by notions about the cold war. During the 197os the world was preoccupied with oil shocks and inflation. In the 198os we welcomed the end of the cold war and the flowering of global free marketeering. But the tggos were the decade of nationalism. The media tell us that nationalism is evil. It implies aggression, the ethnocentrism of extreme self-assertion, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide. We wonder why the brave new world order of the late ig8os has been sullied by this throwback to earlier history. This book is dedicated to the demonstration that the dark view of nationalism is historically simplistic and morally misleading. Nationalism can have all these attributes, but it need not and has not always displayed them. Nationalism is one of the core organizing principles and key experiences of modern human life. It is a feeling of collective identity that is experienced as mutual understanding among people who will never meet but who are sure that they belong to a community of others just like them, who are different from "outsiders." "Insiders" possessed of this feeling wish to have their own state. The sentiment of vicarious collective identity is associated exclusively with modernity, with life involving exposure to mass media and relatively easy communication, with the hope for rising living standards that are achievable through human effort alone, owing little to faith or supernatural forces. Nationalism has been the defining collective identity of modernizing humankind living in separate states. In parts of the industrialized world this exclusiveness is yielding to globalizing and supranational practices, as recounted in the first volume of this study. Whether that vii

PREFACE

exclusiveness is also being successfully challenged in developing countries is one of the key issues explored in this book. Nationalism may come embedded in liberalism or in totalitarianism. In developing countries, however, the definition of a collective identity that seeks to come to terms with secular modernity faces strong challenges from worldviews that remain embedded in religion. Even though nationalism is an aspect of modernization, not all its followers necessarily wish to endorse a purely secular form of modern life. A chief purpose of this book is to explore whether it is possible to combine traditional religious values and institutions with the modernizing thrust of nationalism. True, in the history of the West, liberalism and secularism are twins. They have left their indelible stamp on the collective identities that emerged in advanced industrial nation-states, though only after several countries experimented with totalitarian ways of integration. Liberalism and nationalism need not go together. Given the continuing attraction of religious themes in the definition of collective identities in many developing countries, no simple matching of the two can be expected. By the same token, secularism and nationalism, so often linked in the West, need not show the same affinity elsewhere. Why should that matter? This brings us to the normative subtext of this work. I entertain the hypothesis that there has been enormous progress in human life if we think in material terms. I also suspect that this progress is due to some of the lessons taught us by the Western Enlightenment. Put differently, I hold that human collectivities are able to learn, to change their institutions and practices to make things better for themselves. And I hold that this learning occurs by putting to work the modes of analytic thinking, the search for causal patterns, associated with the Enlightenment. Nationalism was a human invention designed, in a sense, to make life better for collectivities suffering the pangs of modernization. Nationalism took various forms, not all of them liberal. It should be studied in order to ascertain how collectivities learn most effectively. This book inquires whether liberal nationalists learn more readily than others, whether liberal nationalism is to be welcomed outside its origin in the West because it is more likely to lead to human progress than any other kind of collective identity. Yet collective learning might also be compatible with nonliberal forms of nationalism and still lead to progress. All this is explored in the form of eight case studies, selected from Asia, eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. The cases treated in the first volume are "old nationalisms," societies whose intellectuals had articulated nationalist sentiments by 1750 and which achieved the status of nation-states by 1880. Several became exemplars on which later nationalists and nation-builders relied. This volume deals mostly with sociviii

Preface eties whose national identities are largely due to the modernizing thrust of the imperialism the "old" nation-states imposed on them, directly or by intellectual tutelage. The enormous intellectual debts I owe many people who helped with the case studies and theoretical formulations are recorded in the appropriate chapters. The same is true of funding agencies that supported parts of the work. My interest in nationalism was aroused by having lived in Germany in the 1930s. Because of the particularly brutal Nazi sense of collective identity, I wanted to experience a more benign sense of "insiderness." I found it in the liberal nationalism of the America to which my family emigrated. The transmutation of experience into such analytic rigor as is achieved here is due to my friendship with Rupert Emerson and my encounters with Karl W. Deutsch. Rupert Emerson's famous course at Harvard, "Nationalism and Imperialism," was the seed for a similar course I offered for many years. This book is largely the result of that teaching effort, to which my students contributed at least as much as I. Karl Deutsch's Nationalism and Social Communication persuaded me at the very beginning of my academic life that history can be formally analyzed, not merely told as stories. None of my work would have been possible but for the fact that Hil has allowed me to shape my life so as to combine scholarship with things that, I suspect, will turn out to be much more important. ERNST B. HAAS Berkeley, California

ix

Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress Volume

2

CHAPTER ONE

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity

NATIONALISM, PROGRESS, AND MODERNIZATION Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

—From a Chinese fortune cookie

This inquiry into the history of eight new states aspiring to nationstatehood is an effort to probe the core hypothesis that reason, in the form of science, increasingly informs collective decisions.' When actors choose on the basis of scientific reasoning, my hypothesis continues, they usher in more and more progress, in our days under conditions of popular participation featuring the institutions of the nation-state. As the wisdom of Chinese fortune cookies suggests, political change is usually triggered by discontent. Disappointment with the performance of traditional political forms, or resentment of imposed imperial or colonial institutions, triggers the sentiments and behaviors that result in the beliefs we call nationalism and in the demand for the creation of a nation-state. Subsequent disappointment with the performance of the nation-state, in turn, triggers demands for secession, revolution, or the transformation of the nation-state into a different kind of entity. When such changes involve the use of scientific reasoning, politically active people may come to the conclusion that the nation-state may be unable to fuel the train of progress. At that point, reason leads actors to 1 For a full exposition of my theoretical position and its ontological and epistemological justification, see Chapters i and 2 of Volume i of this work, Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The Rise and Decline of Nationalism.

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

entertain transnational and supranational political formulas to solve their problems. Progress is my term for the improvement of every person's lot with respect to health, wealth, and peace. A country that has benefited from progress is one in which the citizenry lives free from the danger of war and civil war and enjoys a higher living standard and a better health (including a cleaner and safer environment) than in the past. People in the industrialized world have been free of war with one another since 1945. Even in the Third World few interstate wars have been fought since 196o, though the number of civil wars remains high. Welfare standards have risen sharply since 1945, although they declined somewhat after 198o as opinion turned against governmental regulation and Keynesian economics, to embrace free markets and monetarism instead. As we know, the confrontation between free marketeers and regulators continues. In short, there has been a great deal of progress. Progress is associated with modernization. Modernization is the ability to apply tested knowledge to the solution of problems in all branches of production; it therefore includes education as well as manufacturing, urbanization, and commercial agriculture (any movement away from local isolation and subsistence agriculture). Social mobilization occurs when the people who are modernized become available to play new social roles: factory workers, soldiers, civil servants, engineers, elected representatives of some constituency. People who are socially mobilized may choose to assimilate to the dominant cosmopolitan culture; or they may deliberately differentiate themselves from it and form their own culture, which may or may not contain elements of the traditional culture from which they recently emerged. Their choice determines whether a nation-state comes into being. Mobilized-differentiated intellectuals often form nationalist sentiments to define their own collective identity against some group they dislike and wish to displace in the process of modernization. "Self" becomes a group of the like-minded, the "nation," juxtaposed to the "other" outside the charmed circle. When social mobilization continues, it results in the creation of a large mass of dissatisfied people, also differentiated from tradition, to whom the intellectuals appeal for the creation of a nation-state that challenges the right of the traditional rulers to continue to define the political community. They do so by formulating nationalist ideologies, programs and doctrines proclaiming the character of the nation-state to be created. A nationalist ideology that gains general acceptance in the state's population is called a national myth. How do countries that are modernizing and are peopled by socially mobilized masses led by intellectuals of diverse beliefs survive the tensions and conflicts associated with change? How can unity emerge from 2

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity

cacophony and suffering? Our main purpose is to show how rationalization takes place and how nationalism can serve as a rationalizing formula. Conversely, we are concerned with determining when nationalism ceases to serve as an effective rationalizer, when the nation-state decays or disintegrates. Rationalization is the coming together into a single coherent set of all contradictory institutions and beliefs impinging on the modernizing society from its premodern past and its current aspirations. Whether to accept, modify, or reject religion is the major task of the rationalizer. There are many ways in which the changes that may add up to rationalization may occur. I am concerned mostly with collective learning, the application of formal reason to the solution of collective social problems, the search for consensual knowledge about causality to be used in the making of public policy. But there are more common ways of achieving rationalization. Sometimes leaders rely simply on their ideology, unaided by any formal knowledge about causality, to rule and to introduce change. More often they adapt, rather than learn. Adaptation involves the deliberate search for new means to achieve unvarying ends if the first set of means proved inadequate. Learning involves the search for new means as well as the substitution of new ends for old ones as a result of an altered understanding of causality. Adaptation

Learning

Behavior changes as actors add new activities (or drop old ones) without examining the implicit theories underlying their programs. Underlying values are not questioned.

Behavior changes as actors question original implicit theories underlying programs and examine their original values.

Ultimate purposes of the action are not questioned. Emphasis is on altering means of action, not ends. Technical rationality triumphs.

Ultimate purpose is redefined, as means as well as ends are questioned. Formal rationality triumphs after several substantive rationalities are blended.

New ends (purposes) are added without worrying about their coherence with existing ends. Change is incremental without any attempt at nesting purposes logically.

New nested problem sets are constructed because new ends are devised on the basis of consensual knowledge that has become available, as provided by epistemic communities.

Adaptive behavior is common, whereas true learning is rare. The very nature of bureaucratic institutions is such that the dice are loaded in favor of the less demanding behavior associated with adaptation. Rationalization that relies on ideology or adaptation is not likely to work for long. As Max Weber might have put it, rationalization based 3

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

on substantive or technical rationality is temporary at best. Theoretical rationality might do better, but only formal rationality—learning, in my universe—is likely to provide lasting social integration because it allows for constant self-examination and self-reform. But, as Weber also taught us, formal rationality leads to the loss of affect, the death of emotional ties among people, to the Iron Cage. And that is why even a formally rationalized society may disintegrate; if it does, its leaders search for a way to rerationalize, perhaps as something other than a nation-state. Rationalization and rerationalization are facilitated by instrumental behavior, not by commitment to fixed principles, to an all-enveloping faith not shared by everyone, or in devotion to a mortal charismatic leader, fallible institution, or murky idea. Instrumental behavior also has a closer affinity to liberalism than to any other of the ideologies we shall explore in our case studies. Rationalization. In my social construction of nationalism, behavior is thought to rest on a calculation of benefits attending one's actions, material as well as ideational and moral benefits. One's calculations are governed by an epistemology self-conscious about truth tests, as well as by an ontology heavily influenced, if not dominated, by material causes. When collective behavior is so "rationalized," actors have banished magical and prescientific views of the nature of things; actors seek causal connections among phenomena and no longer think on the basis of unexamined assumptions; and the end-means chains adopted are subjected to verification by standardized methods. A consistently rational polity implies that like cases will receive like treatment, that routines determine action, not ad hoc choices. It also implies a certain amoral quality with respect to the choice of means, as anything that works is likely to be picked as the appropriate way to reach an end. In such a society all spheres of knowledge are subject to a single analytical mode of reasoning that refuses to divide nature, society, and the transcendental into separate spheres of consciousness. In short, a fully rationalized society, under modern conditions, approaches Weber's formal rationality. Table 1-1 summarizes the indicators for judging degrees of rationalization. Rationalization and modernization. Rationalization means integrating diverse ways of perceiving into a single social vision and making that vision coherent with a set of institutions. Nation-building is a form of deliberately rationalizing a society undergoing modernization.2 2 My understanding of rationalization owes a great deal, apart from the obvious debt to Max Weber, to Paul Diesing, Reason in Society (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), whose notion of "political rationality" seeks to subsume all of Weber's types. His notion of political rationality is very similar to my notion of learning-in-society.

4

Table I-1. Indicators of rationalization and derationalization Indicator

Successful nation-state

Disintegrating nation-state

Income distribution

There is a general commitment to downward income redistribution via welfare state policies and social entitlements Workers' organizations are allowed a role in national economic decision making Farmers' organizations are allowed a role in national decision making

There is no commitment to downward income redistribution via public policy

Workers' organizations Farmers' organizations Payment of taxes Conscription (where used)

Taxes are accepted as legitimate and are consistently paid by citizens Conscription is accepted as legitimate, and evasion is minimal

Fighting wars (where applicable) Administrative coherence

Military personnel are willing to fight

Foreign policy

Public is willing to accept government's definition of country's external role and interests; public opinion accepts changes in policy Public agrees that only constitutionally sanctioned legal procedures can be used to alter policies

Peaceful change

There are clear definitions of mandates and respected jurisdictional boundaries in and among administrative agencies; civil service rules, and norms prevail

Workers' organizations are denied any autonomous role in macroeconomic matters Farmers' organizations are denied any autonomous role in macroeconomic matters Taxes are systematically evaded, and/or certain taxes are considered illegitimate The legitimacy of conscription is widely challenged, and draft evasion is common Military personnel evade fighting There is widespread redundancy and overlapping among administrative agencies, making it hard to determine who has a mandate to do what; inconsistent observation of civil service rules and norms; widespread corruption Foreign policy is highly controversial; existing policies and changes in policy are routinely challenged by important political groups Some major actors proclaim the right to use extraconstitutional (or even violent) means to effect change and act accordingly

Table I-1 (continued) Indicator

Successful nation-state

Disintegrating nation-state

Legitimacy

Institutions representing the public (whether democratic or not) are accepted as adequate and right There is a formula for determining that peaceful succession exists and is followed consistently There is a general agreement that the content of school curriculum contains core values

There are challenges to the adequacy of existing representative institutions

Political succession

National myth in education

Religious institutions

Civil religion

Cultural uniformity

Language

There is a consensus on having either ( ) an official state church or ( 2 ) a complete separation of Church and state There is a consensus that core religious values (possibly straddling several religions) form part of the national myth, or an agreement that they are purely private in a secular state There is a consensus on assimilating cultural minorities into the majority culture, or an agreement to protect and keep minority cultures A single official language alone is acceptable in public and business life, or several such languages enjoy equal status

No formula exists, or one exists, but it is not consistently followed; coups, cabals, assassinations take place Dispute over the content of public school curriculum exists; some claim wrong values are represented, demanding more cosmopolitan or particularistic values Groups demand that existing arrangement be either weakened or strengthened Groups demand that either the religious or secular elements be changed

Minorities challenge the prevailing norm of assimilation, or majority questions preservation of separate minority cultures The continuation of official or favored languages is challenged

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity Modernization is defined by the anthropologist Manning Nash as "the growth in capacity to apply tested knowledge to all branches of production; modernity is the social, cultural, and psychological framework that facilitates the application of science to the processes of production."3 Modernization is often thought of as being synonymous with industrialization. Instead, I emphasize the drift away from such feudal attributes of society as local isolation, subsistence agriculture, illiteracy, rigid social hierarchies, lack of central authority, and inherited status. The core aspect of modernization of concern to me is the advent of mass education and of exposure to ideas independent of face-to-face contact. Students of comparative modernization processes summed up the shift from tradition to modernity by noting that the change involves finding the solutions to these "crises" besetting all societies since the Industrial Revolution first struck:

1. Extending an active sense of membership in the national community to the entire populace; in essence, this is the issue of making state equivalent to nation. 2. Securing a generalized acceptance of the rightness of the exercise and structure of authority by the state, so that its routine regulations and acts obtain voluntary and willing compliance; the state becomes "legitimate." Crawford Young illustrates identity formation by evoking the case of the hypothetical Indian peasant. That person is simultaneously a cultivator by occupation and a tenant by social status, a member of an extended kin network and head of a household. He is also a member of a particular ritual group (subcaste) and of a larger grouping of subcastes organized for political action. In addition, he is a member of a linguistic group, a Hindu, a citizen of a state in the Indian federation, and a client of a locally important person (perhaps the landowner whose tenant he is, who may also be the local chief of a political party or of a caste organization). The acquisition of a national identity then means that our Indian peasant also sees himself as a citizen of the Indian federation and that this identity My reliance on Weber is also manifest in the use of his notion of "elective affinities" instead of "cause" or "causality." Variables and concepts are said to show an elective affinity for each other when formal causality (correlational, functional, or intentional) cannot be shown. An elective affinity exists if A and B are very often—but not always and not predictably—associated with each other and if there is evidence of some causal connection that we are unable to clearly specify. a Manning Nash, Unfinished Agenda (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), p. 6. Nash rescues modernization theory for comparative studies by removing the teleological features used earlier. Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), p. 75.

7

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

evokes more loyalty than all the others. Building the national identity is the crucial activity in rationalization because it allows the rulers to become legitimate, share power, raise standards of living, and administer the entire country effectively by giving people a set of symbols that make them subordinate their parochial and partial identities to the larger one. Processes of change often are slow, uneven, discontinuous, and confined to enclaves in the state. As was true in most of Latin America during its so-called national period, something we should label "frozen" or "partial" rationalization occurs. Most of the conditions enumerated do not yet obtain, but because the elite segment of the country is cognitively and institutionally integrated (though not necessarily along modern lines), the polity functions even though the large rural mass is not part of the elite culture. Each country is assigned a "rationalization score" at regular intervals. A score of i oo percent means that on each of the sixteen indicators shown in table 1-1 (or as many as are applicable) the relevant questions were answered "yes"; each affirmative answer is scored I. A "no" answer receives a o, and a situation suggesting that "some" aspects of the question, though not all, can be answered affirmatively receives a score of 0.5. Table 1-2 displays the rationalization scores of all countries used in this study and of three others for which data were collected. The Mobilization-Assimilation Balance "People" and groups being uprooted from time-honored practices have a choice: they can join those who uprooted them by assimilating to their ways—if allowed to do so. But they need not choose to shed their traditional ways. They may wish to remain "traditionals" who cherish their folk culture by not learning the elite language, not converting to the right religion, and refusing to shed the traits that impede assimilation. In other settings, the dominant elite may block the desire for assimilation of the mobilized by active discriminatory measures. In either case, the mobilized but unassimilated will deliberately form political movements to force their way onto a different track that is expected to lead to wealth, status, power, or recognition as the despised elite's equal. The mobilizedunassimilated forge identities in opposition to those who prevented their peaceful entry into the elite's culture.4 In multicultural situations, for example in the disintegrating Habsburg, Ottoman, Qing, and British em4 See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), chaps. 2 and 3. The concepts of social mobilization, assimilation, and mobilization/ assimilation were developed by Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (New York: Wiley, 1953).

8

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity Table 1-2. Rationalization scores, 1800-1990

Brazil China Egypt France Germany India Iran Japan Mexico Nigeria'` Pakistan'' Russia/ USSR Tanzania'' U.K. U.S.

1800a

185oh

1880

1900'

1940d

1950e

1970'

75 — — 41 — —

— — 30 —

67 27 42 66

61

90

31 32 38

59 — —

84 — 27

84 —

75 72 40 84 — 56

63

— — 46 — —

53 59 86 83

59 64 — — —

78 23 — — 5o

57 84 —

47 79 86

6o

43 27 69

73

57 5o 81 83 63 6o 82 5o 23 57 53

—

77 89

— 87 82

94 100

8o 88 66

8o 8o 67

— —

— 31 — —

—

59

75 65

— 68 40

78

53 53 86 75 46 20

1990g

a The U.S. score is for 181o. b The U.S. score is for 1840-50. • The German and Mexican scores are for 1910. Egypt's is for 1920. d The U.S., Iran, USSR, and British scores are from 1930. The German score in 1930, not reported in the table, was 64. The Chinese score is for 1925-49. Brazil's is for 1930. • The Japanese score is for 1960. The Pakistani score is for 1947-59. The Indian score is for 1950-69. The Chinese score is for 1950-66. Nigeria's is for 1960, Tanzania's is for 1965. The French, Mexican, Tanzanian, and Japanese scores are for 1980. The Pakistani and Indian scores are for the 197os. The Chinese score is for 1967-80. Egypt's is for 1975, Nigeria's is for 1975. g The French and Tanzanian score is for 1995. The Indian score is for 1980-93. The Chinese score is for the 198os. Brazil's is for 1995. Mexico's, Pakistan's and Russia's are for 1997. Nigeria's is for 1990-97. h These data were not written up as full case studies.

pires, things are complicated in this fashion because the mobilized often have good reason to resist assimilation into the empire's elite culture, because to assimilate may mean giving up self-respect, status, wealth, or power.5 Hence the mobilized-unassimilated may begin to act out their 5 I call attention to the existence of a compelling literature that, on grounds of rational choice, explains and predicts the failure of assimilation in multicultural settings and therefore questions the possibility of rationalizing such societies via institutions under the control

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Figure 1-r. The mobilization-assimilation balance and rationalization Mobilization is Incomplete Incomplete Assimilation is Complete

Complete

1. Not a nation-state

2.

National identity contested

3. Proto-rationalized state

4. Rationalized nation-state

frustration. They will exclude themselves from not only the benefits of industrialism but also the upward mobility that might otherwise have been theirs. These circumstances propel them to the definition of an alternative identity that retains much of the folk culture and may end as a type of nationalism quite different from that of those who choose to merge with the old elite. The alternative mobilization-assimilation balances and imbalances are shown in figure 1-1. In cell 3 we find a few polities that seem rationalized now because a small elite rules unchallenged by the traditional folk still undergoing mobilization; things will change—and nationalist creeds will multiply—once the degree of mobilization is such as to pose severe challenges for the elite to assimilate the newcomers rapidly. Countries in cell i are not yet nation-states, though many are on the way. In cell 2 we find the most volatile mixture: a fully mobilized population not yet successfully assimilated but conscious of rival ideologies claiming to establish collective identities. Successfully rationalized nation-states inhabit cell 4, although they may not remain there. Yet the outcome need not be "modern," or formally rational. In our days, the countries in cell 4 constitute a minority of existing states. How can we tell when countries have passed from cells i and 3 into 2 or 4? Only a stratum of the population not part of the elite can experience social mobilization, such as the peasantry, the urban skilled and unskilled groups, and the urban bourgeoisie (if kept out of the governing elite). Typically, an unmobilized population is illiterate, is not part of a market economy extending beyond the immediate locality, rarely travels outside that area, and depends on the extended family for all social and of one dominant group. See Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Schepsle, Politics in Plural Sodeties (Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1972); David Laitin, Language Repertoires and State Construction in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). IO

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity

support services (unless such services are supplied by religious bodies). Sons inherit the occupations of their fathers. The state is perceived as a remote oppressor, to be evaded by guile or flight. In a polity undergoing mobilization most of the following conditions hold: 1. The literacy rate remains about 5o percent. 2. Peasants are able to move freely from countryside to city. 3. Children no longer are compelled to follow their father's occupation, although most do. 4. Everyone is exposed to television and radio messages. 5. The subsistence agricultural sector is shrinking but remains important. 6. Industrialization is confined to enclaves. 7. The extended family and religious organizations remain the chief suppliers of social services. 8. There are few intermediate organizations (such as modern interest groups), and the ones that exist rarely function translocally. 9. Those who earn their living in the modern sector typically feel hostile toward it. 10. Attitudes toward the state are ambivalent; sometimes the state remains a distant oppressor to be evaded, but more often it is seen as a potential benefactor. Elites who try to provide direction and help to the mobilizedunassimilated struck by the forces of modernization are engaged in rationalization if they provide a coherent set of values and institutions. And now, at last, the conceptually focused reconstruction of the historical paths to nation-statehood can be undertaken. Five Paths to Nation-Statehood I now present a typology of historical paths that fits most nation-states. That typology impugns the argument that liberal democracy and nationalism have a unique affinity. Most comparative accounts of nationalism shy away from positing modal historical sequences, repetitive phases in the evolution of nation-states. Some accounts attempt this for eastern Europe, others for western Europe, but none seeks to include Asian or Latin American experience as well. Liberalism is clearly not the only ideology that served as the basis for rationalizing polities. The evidence that continues to unroll anew every time we turn on the television news suggests that nonliberal ideologies enjoy tremendous popularity. There are II

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

dozens of countries that go through modal patterns of development different from the French and British experience of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. We ought to analyze these patterns before we declare any single case to be uniquely authentic. Five questions should be asked of each case; the answers can be yes or no. 1. State in place. Are the institutions of the state essentially in place at the time of nationalist self-assertion? 2. Social mobilization. Is social mobilization substantially complete at the time the effort is made to create or assert the existence of a nation? More specifically, has most of the population become available for new social roles? Do the advocates of nationhood, the mobilizedunassimilated, contain only individuals who are fully mobilized, or do we find individuals among them who have not quite shed all the traits of tradition? 3. Acceptance of the elite culture. Do the mobilized-unassimilated accept the elite's culture as their own? 4. Multiculturalism. Are the mobilized-unassimilated all of the same culture? If not, are the claims of the mobilized-unassimilated concerned essentially with the elimination of inferiority based on cultural criteria? Do the mobilized—partly assimilated base their claims for nationhood on the alleged denial of cultural recognition by the elite? 5. Equality. Are the claims of the mobilized-unassimilated concerned essentially with equality of status and wealth? All judgments by the analyst-observer are made at the time when demands for separate nation-statehood are first brought forth with great force. Sorting the answers to these questions into patterns yields five common types (see table 1-3).6 Nationalist Ideologies Compared If the allegedly unique rationalizing prowess of liberal nationalism is to be dethroned, it becomes necessary to spell out how the paths to nation6 Gellner makes the same point somewhat differently. In the oldest nation-states there was no conflict between the state and the culture of those who took it over. In central Europe those who captured or fashioned the states professed the same culture as their non-national predecessors, but they needed to imbue the masses with that culture. In eastern Europe state and culture had to be fashioned simultaneously because the nationalists rejected the culture of their "oppressors." In the former Soviet realm the same was true, "but the 'natural' development was distorted by seventy or forty years of communism." See his Encounters with Nationalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1994), p. 192.

I2

Table 1-3. Paths to nation-statehood I.

Type A i. State institutions are in place. 2. Counter-elite accepts culture of old elite. 3. Social mobilization is advancing but incomplete. 4. Mobilized-unassimilated are articulate, but not numerous, in demanding equality. Example: France in 1789 II. Type B i. State institutions are in place. 2. Counter-elite is internally divided about which elite culture (among several possible ones) ought to be adopted. It also is divided on which aspects of folk culture should be featured. 3. Social mobilization is not far advanced but accelerating. 4. Mobilized-unassimilated are numerous and articulate in demanding equality. Example: India in 1940 III. Type C 1. No state exists. Counter-elite has to build one by seceding or by unifying several states. 2. Counter-elite is internally divided, just as in Type B. 3. Social mobilization is under way, but its impact is uneven. 4. Mobilized-unassimilated are numerous and articulate in demanding equality. Example: Germany in 185o IV. Type D 1. State is extremely weak, and localism prevails. 2. Counter-elite is culturally ambivalent, rejecting foreign elite culture and unsure about local folk culture(s). 3. Social mobilization is frozen at a low level. 4. Mobilized-unassimilated are few in number but articulate in demanding equality. Example: Brazil in 193o V. Type E 1. There is no state because secession is just occurring. 2. Counter-elite is a portion of the former ruling elite, thrust against its will into a new role; its attitude toward local folk culture and rival elite cultures is ambivalent. 3. Social mobilization is complete or very far advanced. 4. Mobilized-unassimilated are the victims of former oppression or discrimination, demanding to lead the nation. Example: Ukraine in 1990

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

statehood other than Type A can work.' Perhaps it would be more in keeping with my leading hypothesis about the potential formal rationality of liberal nationalism to wonder whether paths B, C, D, and E can work. In any event, the task is to spell out the range of historically held beliefs about the nature and mission of nations—nationalist ideologies—and to inquire into what happens if one of these "wins" the competition by becoming the dominant myth of a specific nation. Before doing either, it is necessary to distinguish national sentiments from nationalist ideologies and myths. The difference between agrarian and industrial societies, explained Ernest Gellner, is both cybernetic and semantic. Agrarian societies are prenational because they feature "the coexistence within them of multiple, not properly united, but hierarchically related subworlds, and the existence of special privileged facts, sacralized and exempt from ordinary treatment." In industrial societies "all facts are located within a single contiguous space . . . statements reporting them can be conjoined and generally related to each other . . . one single language describes the world and is internally unitary . . . there are no special, privileged, insulated facts or realms, protected from contamination or contradiction by others, and living in insulated independent local spaces of their own."8 The difference between the two also is expressed in the contrast between beliefs that not only claim to be "true" but also provide the sole criteria for judging all "truth" (e.g., dogmatic universalist religion), and beliefs that admit the contingent nature of truth claims, the possibility that truth is not revealed for all time but unfolds gradually in conformity with relativistic cognitive criteria (i.e., the post-Enlightenment scientific tradition). Gellner's formulation suggests that nationalist ideas are part of the transition to the rational (i.e., modern) mode of social being because they express the societal thrust toward homogeneous perception and homogeneous social organization and behavior. The father of studies of modern nationalism, Hans Kohn, long taught that the only authentic nationalism was the liberal variety, and the only "good" historical sequence the one represented by our Type A. All other sequences were suspect because they tended not to be dominated by liberal-minded actors and had no ready-made state to capture, as did the "good" French and British nationalists. Hence Germany, eastern Europe, and the Third World, according to this line of thought, were unlikely to end up as liberal nation-states. Their national myths were likely to be filled with hatred for "others," including domestic minorities, and they were expected to be war-prone. This line of thought remains alive and well, despite its Eurocentricity and inattention to local variation. See, for instance, Leah Greenfeld, Nationalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); Julia Kristeva, Nations without Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Dominique Schnapper, La France de l'integration (Paris: Gallimard, 1991) and La communaute des citoyens (Paris: Gallimard, 1994). These works are reviewed by Edward A. Tiryakian, 'The Wild Cards of Modernity," Daedalus (Spring 1997): 147-82. 8 Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, p. 21.

4

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity

Typically, nationalist ideologies make assertions about key contentious aspects of the solidarity being urged. Because they challenge, advocate, or seek to come to terms with the impact of modernity, all nationalist ideologies must be concerned with the validity of the core values of the traditional culture. Revolutionary ideologies seek to get rid of traditional values; syncretist ideologies seek to amend or retain them, differing on the extent of intercultural borrowing that ought to be fostered. Ideologies make assertions about the nation's claim to historical uniqueness, about the territory that the nation-state ought to occupy, and about the kinds of relations that should prevail between one's nation and others. Nationalist ideologies also contain constitutional and institutional programs on how the nation ought to be governed. Finally, these ideologies advance ideas on the historical mission of the nation, ranging from quiet self-protection to conquest or the restoration of some golden age. Seven nationalist ideologies recur in comparative history, four revolutionary and three syncretist in emphasis. Despite their differences, all seven have certain characteristics in common that distinguish them from premodern ideologies. All are populistic; they all derive their appeal from the claim that "the people" of a certain territory (not a class or status group) have an innate right to self-determination. All are progressive because they reject all or some of the historical past; they believe in the efficacy of human intervention to change history for the better. And all are rational because they diagnose a challenge and prescribe a response; they embody distinct notions of cause and effect, ends and means; matching means to ends is not usually random, emotional, passionate, willful, or romantic. But the differences between the two main types also must be stressed. Revolutionary ideologies insist on drastic institutional change. Certain types of social groups are to be removed. Relations among remaining and new groups must become totally different. The old elite must go, and a new elite compatible with populism and progress must take its place. Syncretist ideologies are unwilling to be this drastic. They do not represent a sharp break with the past, only some compromise with it. They often reject the values of modernity, though they seek to incorporate its techniques and some of its institutions. If Gellner is right, the status of liberal nationalism is again being privileged. The modern qualities being acclaimed are more often associated with countries rationalized under liberal ideological auspices than with other ideologies. To the extent that the entire world yearns to become "industrial," the victory of liberal nationalism over its rivals implies the victory of a global formal rationality over squabbling substantive ones. It would eventually imply the rationalization of the world under liberal auspices, the global end of nonliberal ideologies. '5

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

But what if the competing substantive rationalities are successful enough to satisfy people for lengthy periods of time? What if the traditional and the modern manage to coexist, however uncomfortably, in the same polity? Is it possible that such "modern" features as industrial and bureaucratic organization, at the state as well as the interstate levels, are somehow compatible with such "nonmodern" ones as religious fundamentalism and racial exclusiveness? In that case, formal (modern, industrial) rationality is not sweeping the world and the content of international relations continues to be infused with many ideologies and myths, not just one. The purpose of our sociological study of national identity is to find out which claim is the better one. The winning pattern, conjoined with the particular historical path on which it progresses, allows us to offer modest predictions about the choices various types of nationalists are likely to make. Tables 1-4 and 1-5 summarize the seven types. Revolutionary ideologies. Revolutionary ideologies tend to be more internally coherent than syncretist ones. They embody a sharper sense of technical rationality. They are willing to trade off values quite ruthlessly, whereas their syncretist rivals are often hesitant and inconsistent in their choices. All nationalist ideologies stress the short run over the long term because none appreciates that over the long haul any set of major institutional changes triggers unforeseen and possibly unwanted consequences, inconsistent with the values being urged. But syncretist ideologies are much more likely to suffer from the uncertainties of the long run. Revolutionary ideologies are consistent in urging inclusive popular participation, whether voluntaristic or manipulated. Syncretists tend to fudge the issue of participation, alternating between voluntary modes and manipulation, between elections and repression, between individual rights and the obligation to submerge oneself in the collectivity. Revolutionary ideologies of nationalism include "liberal" and "integral" variants. Each, in turn, must be subdivided. Liberals break down into "Jacobins" and "Whigs," integralists into "Leninists" and "racists." Jacobin liberals reject traditional values and institutions completely and wish to replace them. Whigs also reject them but look for replacements more cautiously. Both believe that liberal societies have many international affinities and ought to borrow from one another. Jacobins derive the nation's claim to historical distinctiveness from alleged cultural homogeneity; thus they profit from whatever processes of homogenization and centralization may have been brought about by predecessor regimes. Whigs prefer the legitimacy of historical continuity to cultural homogeneity, as did John Stuart Mill and Nehru. Both types agree that the area occupied by whatever group defines itself as "the nation" is the proper territory of its state. Both also agree that relations among liberal nations 16

Make peaceful contribution to the expansion of liberalism Representative democracy; natural rights for individual citizens

Spread liberalism by example and by war if appropriate

Borrow from other Leninists

Reject outright

Leninist

Representative democracy; natural rights for individual citizens

Continuous self-perfection and the global diffusion of creed Danton, Jefferson, Mill, Nehru Wilson, Cavour, Heine

What is the historical mission of the nation? Examples

Racist

Totalitarian rule via a vanguard group incarnating the nation; rights inherent in nation, not individual Ensure survival of the race Mussolini, Hitler, Kita Ikki, Codreanu

Totalitarian rule via a vanguard group incarnating the nation; rights inherent in nation, not individual Bring about classless society Stalin, Tito, Ho, Mao

Permanent struggle; need for survival, endemic hostility toward others

Permanent struggle; diffuse values and institutions by force and/or example

Racial superiority or historical continuity

Borrow selectively from other racists

Reject substance but retain symbols

Integralism

Class defined as resistance to imperialism within specific territory Whatever area is occupied by the group defined above

Borrowing is good; liberals ought to borrow from each other Historical continuity

Borrowing is good; liberals ought to borrow from each other Cultural superiority and homogeneity

Whig Reform gradually

Liberalism

Reject outright

Jacobin

What is the proper institutional structure for the nation?

What is the nation's claim to historical distinctiveness? What territory is properly the nation's? How should the nation relate to other nations?

What should be done about the core values of the traditional culture? What ought to be borrowed from other cultures?

Dimension

Table 1-4. Attributes of revolutionary nationalist ideologies

What is the historical mission of the nation? Examples

What should be done about the core values of the traditional culture? What ought to be borrowed from other cultures? What is the nation's claim to historical distinctiveness? What territory is properly the nation's? How should the nation relate to other nations? What is the proper institutional structure for the nation?

Dimension

Ensure its own survival and self-perfection Senghor, K'ang Yu-wei, Mazzini, Afghani, German romantics

Usually, but not always, the existing state Cooperatively and peacefully, after survival is ensured Variable

Many modern values are good and usable; mix with good traditional values Values as well as techniques and institutions Historical longevity

Reformist

Table 1-5. Attributes of syncretist nationalist ideologies

Stein, Maurras, Meiji reformers, many Confucianists, Indian Muslim reformers

Ambivalently because of continuing fear for survival Various corporate devices to limit popular participation and legitimate leadership of traditional groups Ensure its own survival

Only techniques and institutions needed, not values Cultural superiority as evidenced by historical longevity; race Area of existing state

Distrust modern values, very cautiously borrow

Traditional

Tilak, Khomeini, al-Banna, Slavophiles

Restore the golden age

Reject existing traditional values in favor of restoring values of a past golden age Only techniques, not institutions or values Religious revelation, scriptural authority Area occupied by people to whom the revelation was made Hostilely and distrustfully; need for struggle/vigilance Theocracy

Restorative

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity

ought to be peaceful. However, Jacobins and Whigs are willing to use force against nonliberal antagonists to make them progress toward liberalism, to aid in their liberation, and to colonize them for their own good. Jacobins are somewhat more aggressive in their proselytizing zeal. All liberal nationalists advocate representative democracy, natural rights, and the free participation of all citizens in government. Jacobins believe the historical mission of the nation is not merely continuous self-perfection but also the global diffusion of the creed. Whigs prefer to confine matters to continuous self-perfection. There has been an elective affinity, to say the least, between liberal nationalism and late-nineteenth-century imperialism.9 The missionary power of the creed was obvious in the allied occupation of Germany and Japan after 1945. Liberal nationalism believes in the possibility of a peaceful world order but does not consistently work for it. Not all varieties of liberal nationalism favor an egalitarian domestic social order; only in the twentieth century have the successors of the original Jacobin Liberals embraced the tenets of the welfare state. Whig Liberalism embraced capitalism and private property as a sacrosanct principle of social life, as necessary aspects of democratic governance, until the 1940s; now Whigs tolerate aspects of social democracy. When we examine the integralist family of ideologies, such ambiguity vanishes fast. Racists and Leninists also reject the old order and its values, although racists sometimes pretend to retain some of its symbols, as in Hitler's playing with pre-Christian themes, Mussolini's appeals to Roman grandeur, and Kita Ikki's to Shinto ideas. Borrowing from other integralist societies is praiseworthy. What group of people is to be selected as "the nation"? Leninists came to opt for the particular class, or coalition of classes, that resists imperialism in a specified territory in preference to ethnic groups that resist imperialism. Racists use a racial criterion or arguments about historical continuity or both. Both ideologies advocate a totalitarian mode of government by a vanguard of the elect that incarnates the nation as a collectivity. Both assume that the nation must struggle for survival because it is constantly threatened by attack from hostile external forces. Racists glorify war and self-assertion as part of the national mission. Leninists accept war as inevitable as long as imperialism continues to live, but they glorify only wars of national liberation. For the racist, the mission of the nation is to ensure its own survival; for the 9 Liberal nationalism legitimated the building of the British, French, and American colonial empires after 187o. The very origin of the word empire in modern political discourse is associated with populism and the national mission to diffuse it. Liberal nationalism inspired much of colonial administration and explains the responses of the first generation of anticolonial nationalists in Africa and Asia. See Richard Koebner and H. Schmidt, Imperialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965); Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 196o).

19

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Leninist, it is the ushering in of a classless society. The idea of a harmonious international order is alien to racists and Leninists. As long as the contrast between liberal and integral nationalism remained as stark as the historic ideologies suggest, the idea of a rationalized world seemed farfetched. But then, the successors of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Tojo sensed that clinging to ideological purity is not always wise. Syncretist ideologies. All syncretist doctrines hinge on the relationship between religion and governance, between the diverse substantive rationalities of religious legitimation and religious solidarities, and the formal rationality of uniformity of worldviews.1° The three kinds of syncretists disagree on how much of the revolutionary ideologies ought to be accepted in their countries. Reformist syncretists, such as Leopold Senghor, Kang Yuwei, Mazzini, or the German romantics, consider many modern values desirable, provided they can be mixed appropriately with traditional values to be retained. Such ideologists feel that not all traditional values are worthy of retention, however, particularly those closely associated with a diffuse agrarian order. Reformists want to borrow values, along with institutions and techniques, from the modernizers. Their claim to nationhood for their own countries rests on historical longevity. They demand only the existing state for the nation's home. They seek peaceful and cooperative relations with others, after the survival of their nation seems assured. Democracy may or may not be the featured form of government; various forms of authoritarian rule by the elite which understand the proper mixture of values is more common. The historical mission of the nation is to bring about its own survival and protection, which implies heavy borrowing from nonindigenous cultural sources in order to succeed. Among the successful reformist syncretists we could list some of the Meiji reformers, South Korean leaders, and perhaps the postindependence regimes in the Ivory Coast and Senegal. Traditional syncretists distrust nonindigenous values and have no intention of introducing them. They remain deeply attached to religious systems that shape the local culture: Confucianism, Islam, Hinduism, Catholicism. Such people, however, are quite willing to take over such nonindigenous practices as industrial technology, scientific education, mass literacy, and sophisticated military forces. More important, they are willing to adapt indigenous institutions to the extent necessary to incor10 Syncretism is a term that originated in the writings of historians of religious movements who sought to show how one sect selectively borrows from another. The extension of the same idea to studies of anticolonial revolts is nicely illustrated in the case of the Boxers in Shandong Province during the 189os. See S. Harrell and Elizabeth Perry, "Syncretic Sects in Chinese Society," Modern China 8, no. 3 (1982): 296-300, for material showing how a mixture of Buddhist and Taoist ideas was used to challenge Confucian political orthodoxy in an effort to reform the Qing government. 20

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity porate these practices, for example through the introduction of conscription, compulsory public education, and even aspects of industrial organization. Traditional syncretists persuade themselves that they can borrow techniques and institutions without also accepting the values that go with them. Their claim to national distinctiveness rests on an argument for historical cultural superiority over their rivals that often takes a racial form, as in the work of Charles Maurras, some of the late Qing Confucianists, and Rabindranath Tagore. They claim as the nation's realm the territory of the existing state, but they are ambivalent about the nation's relations with other countries because of their strong fear that they may not survive. Ensuring survival is the nation's main mission, which calls for an indigenous cultural renaissance along with the introduction of nonindigenous institutions and practices. The mode of governance preferred by traditional syncretists is corporatism designed to contain and channel popular participation while legitimating the leadership of traditional groups, as clearly expressed by one of the earliest latecomers, Prussia's Baron vom Stein. Restorative syncretists reject foreign values and institutions completely. They merely want the foreigner's most powerful techniques: his armies and factories. In fact, they take the position that the values actually professed by their own governments are already dangerously corrupt and must be replaced by pure and authentic indigenous values. They are restorers because they wish to get rid of foreign moral and institutional accretions and bring back the purity of an earlier golden age. They rely on religious revelation and scriptural authority: the Vedic texts for Tilak, the Quran (Koran) for Khomeini and Hassan al-Banna, the Christian Bible for the Slavophiles. Who is the nation? The people to whom the revelation was made, irrespective of where they might live. In the setting of anticolonial revolts, revolutionary and various syncretist ideologies typically compete, giving us a range of possible national myths as the eventual winners. The typical sequence of events was roughly as follows. As a result of the introduction of Western laws, economic patterns, and especially the immigration of Western settlers, a certain segment of the colonized population is torn away from traditional pursuits by being absorbed into the modern sectors of the economy and eventually into the Western educational system. Moreover, such mobilized indigenous persons usually acquire a marked taste for Western products, ways, and values, only to be rebuffed and humiliated by the colonizers as inferiors, as "wogs." At that point, admiration turns to hatred. The Western settler and official adopts one type of ideology to shore up his self-respect and to justify rule over the colonized, perhaps a continuation of the original nationalism that justified conquering the colony. 21

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS The victims, however, adopt a different ideology, a set of beliefs designed to give them the self-respect and the dignity they lack, an ideology that normally culminates in the assertion of an identity that cannot be content until the colonizer leaves and a new nation-state is created instead. But which nationalist formula shall be used to rationalize the new entity, a liberal or integral one taken from the colonizer's armory of doctrines or a syncretist myth that seeks to preserve aspects of the preimperial culture? IS THIRD WORLD NATIONALISM "DIFFERENT"? Western Paths as Dubious Guides So much for the central hypothesis about reason and learning as a way of collectively coping with the conundra of modernity. Nationalismas-rationalizer is merely an agent, a possible transmission belt, in this scheme. It deals with the variety of state institutions and values that forge a collective identity, with their efficacy as agents for overcoming, or at least containing, discontent. Figure 1-2 shows the links among the processes studied irrespective of where they occur. We traced this interaction in the case of the industrialized countries by asking these questions: • Is there a typical sequence of historical events that correlates with successful rationalization? (One of the five listed under 4a and 4b.) The evidence presented in Volume I failed to provide a positive answer. Not all nation-states continue to display the institutions and values that attended their origins; later accretions may also result in eventual rationalization. • Do the particular nationalist ideologies (listed under 3) that prevail at the debut of a nation-state successfully predict the formula under which eventual rationalization is achieved? The answer from the West is "not always." • Which kind of nationalist ideology excels at rationalizing a country undergoing modernization: liberalism, racist integralism, Leninist integralism, or various kinds of syncretist compromises with tradition? Liberalism had a slight edge in the sample of old nation-states but did not score a smashing victory. • Does liberalism do better in inducing collective learning than the other nationalist ideologies? Does liberalism have an elective affinity for progress? The experience of the West suggests that the answer is yes; Japan's was somewhat different. The Third World may learn still other lessons without subscribing to liberalism. 22

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity Figure 1-2. Ideal-typical path toward national identity (1) Social mobilization (2a) Assimilation of mobilized into old elite. They accept established values and identities.

(2b) Differentiation of mobilized

(3) Nationalist ideologies (7 types. Tables 1-4, 1-5) (4a) Take over and reform old state (Types A, B)

(4b) Secede and create new state (Types C, D, E) 1/

(5) National myths (6) Rationalized nation-state (7) New social discontent leading possibly to collective learning and the search for novel political formulas

My own social construction of reality is responsible for this choice of questions-serving-as-variables. I assume the dominance of instrumental motives. I chose the variables because they correspond to my abductive reading of case histories; they represent my way of imputing patterned instrumental behavior to actors following the limited number of paths blazed by modern history. I assume a weak causality in the actual association of variables, a causality no stronger than that of elective affinities." " My treatment of nationalism-as-rationalizer is totally incompatible with a number of other treatments of nationalism. In fact, my ontological and epistemological commitments are chosen so as to challenge those associated with these other treatments, which include ( ) "primordialist" authors who argue that nationalism is quasi-genetic, that ethnic identities are the only natural building blocks of nationhood (primordialism is totally incompatible with assumptions about the primacy of instrumental human choice and behavior); (2) analysts who believe that a world made up of warring ethnicities, of clashing cultural identities, is the wave of the future; and (3) peace activists who consider nationalism an evil that has always bedeviled world harmony. For an appreciation of how my social construction of the socially constructed identities invented by nationalists differs from the social constructions adopted by other theorists (and to what extent mine is indebted to theirs), see the survey of theoretical approaches provided by Anthony Smith, "The Nation: Invented, Imagined, Reconstructed?" Millennium 2o, no. 3 (1991): 353-68. My epistemology is abductive rather than inductive, as defined by Peirce. See C. J. Misak, Truth and the End of Inquiry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 91-111. 23

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

There are certain peculiarities about the Third World experience that ought to alert us to the possibility that the patterns found to apply among old nation-states are not universally valid. The cases studied in Volume i represent the happy scenario of successfully learning to moderate one's love for "self' and to recognize permanent links with the "other." To be sure, that lesson was not learned until the countries had gone through the disasters of two world wars and the Great Depression. Their earlier bellicose national myths underwent very appreciable moderation as a result of these experiences. While nationalist fervor certainly declined in the industrialized countries, so did rationalization. The benefit reaped in terms of peace among industrial nations may be paid for by increased strife within them. As of now, new countries are clearly more nationalistically inclined than the older ones, as shown in table 1-6. The countries studied in this volume have yet to live through these postindustrial and transnational experiences. None of these countries existed before 1945 as modern nation-states. Although many of them had long possessed the formal attributes of statehood, their rulers presided Table 1-6. Indicators of national pride (percentage answering "yes" or "very/quite proud") 1981

Brazil Britain China France Germany (West) India Japan Mexico Nigeria Moscow United States

'

199 1a

— 68 — 48 47 — 32 89 —

35 79 97 66 42 92 20 74 8o

74

75 74

1981b

1991b

— 88 — 8o 65 — 64 88 — —

87 89 82 87 69

99

94 66 89 85 61 98

SOURCE: World Values Study Group, World Values Survey, 1981-84 and 199o-93. Computer file of Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I am grateful to Ron Inglehart for sharing his data with me. Answers to question "Are you willing to fight in war for your country?" Total sample = 44,000, country samples vary from about 1,000 to 2,400. b Answers to question "Are you proud to be a . . . ?" Total sample = 25,600, country samples as above. 24

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity over unmobilized populations or ruled in conjunction with tiny mobilized elites opposed to the populist social changes implied by nationalism. Many new countries have yet to attain nation-statehood. Many others have not yet managed to achieve a high degree of rationalization. Aggressive nationalism, distrust of the outside world, willingness to go to war continue to characterize their beliefs in most instances. Most Third World countries face a political burden that the old nations escaped. In western Europe, North America, and Japan, state-building generally preceded nation-building; the mobilized-differentiated elites who "won" did not need to build a state from scratch. Even in Germany and Italy, where nationalism preceded the creation of a common state, the "winning" elite already had a mobilized following and relied on the existing Prussian and Piedmontese states, respectively. Not so in many of the countries examined here. Brazil, Mexico, Iran, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Tanzania entered the modern era having neither a developed sense of national identity nor a functioning state; India, Egypt, and Russia were more fortunate. Most of the countries studied in this volume bear the double burden of having to create nation and state simultaneously. The chief difference between the experience of the older nations and the newer ones may turn out to be the continuing salience of religion in the definition of national identity. Among the industrialized countries religious differences over national identity ceased to be of importance by 1945; in Britain, the United States, and Japan religion had stopped being a divisive force much earlier. Not so in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, and Iran, and perhaps not even in Russia. There religion continues to be at the core of cultural self-identification, and conflict over religious issues is of the essence of national politics. Liberalism-as-Process Almost all Western nations, no matter what ideological adventures they had to undergo in their histories, ended up being devoted to liberal nationalism. Liberal nationalism was invented in the West; the first nationstates, Britain and France, practiced liberal nationalism before that creed was challenged by other would-be rationalizers; and French and British liberalisms served as role models elsewhere in the world. Why then doubt that progressive rationalization in the Third World will also occur under the aegis of liberalism? I privilege liberal nationalism-as-rationalizer because liberalism favors the progressive "sharing of meanings" among actors without which there can be no learning. I associate liberalism with a certain procedure for the making of collective decisions, not with a distinct moral substance. My 25

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

hypothesis about reason and change in international life is substantively amoral. If we think of morality as the acceptance of a specific doctrine, a specific set of values superimposed on a set of concrete decisions, we cannot associate moral content with my hypothesis about change for the better. The very notion of shared meanings must eschew attachment to a given doctrine, a prespecified scale of values that is known to be less than universal in its appeal. The evolution of contested values into shared values cannot begin with the unilateral assertion of the superiority of a single one. If Western rational thought is held out as superior, it must be proved so on the basis of its voluntary acceptance by other cultures.12 We cannot dictate a moral code beyond stipulating the universal preference for secure life, health, wealth, and peace. Minimally, liberalism, at all times and everywhere, is a form of government that employs decision-making procedures that provide for the representation of all major social and economic interests and ideologies and allow almost unrestricted discussion. It uses voting procedures that prevent the tyranny of majorities and minorities; it commits itself to no single substantive formula of justice, rights, or expectations. This is a minimal definition that enables me to accommodate political experiences that differ in their commitments to various notions of justice and world order. Many will insist on a notion of liberalism that is substantively Rawlsian: utilitarianism with social justice; others will stress social justice and denigrate utilitarian values. Some will argue that liberalism implies a commitment to a peaceful world order; others stress a missionary liberalism that accepts the use of force in international politics.13 Liberalism-as-process allows exactly the intellectual and institutional space required by a pragmatic formula of openness.'4 It permits more than one way of organizing a polity or conferring a collective identity and the unfolding of consensual knowledge. Open debate, continuous political participation, and decision by voting facilitate the mingling of ideas 12 For a postmodernist effort to show that Western liberal writing on nationalism is hopelessly distorted by secular-rational and neocolonial biases, see Partah Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 13 See Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), for a conceptualization very different from mine. She thinks of liberal nationalism as a beneficial tolerance for "the other" in multicultural polities. To define liberal nationalism exclusively in such terms, however, limits the sweep of the concept. Tamir is careful to distinguish this notion of liberal nationalism from the cosmopolitanism many Liberals profess. 14 I take courage from Richard Rorty's argument that philosophical pragmatism is the same thing as liberalism-as-process and that liberalism should not be defined substantively as a particular conception of justice. His notion of liberalism, like mine, has a special elective affinity with human progress. Like me, he argues that liberalism is relativistic and encompasses a special scientific-cultural dialogue for which other value systems do not have a natural elective affinity. See his Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pt. 1.

26

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity and the spinning of webs of common meaning to a greater extent than do hierarchical-authoritarian institutions whose rule rests on faith, fear, and force. In short, liberal institutions favor learning because they admit the rational-analytic mode of acting more than any other set of institutions. Liberal nationalism, more than any other, favors reason and progress. The "Curse of Ethnonationalism": How Deadly? "History is littered with the wreck of states that tried to combine diverse ethnic or linguistic or religious groups within a single sovereignty," intoned Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The implication of this dictum is that very few Third World polities will ever become rationalized nation-states since very few lack the stigmata of ethnic diversity. If Schlesinger and the large number of students who agree with him are right, our inquiry into nationalism-as-rationalizer is doomed from the outset. The debate hinges on what is meant by the contested terms "culture" and "ethnonationalism." If they can be clearly demarcated conceptually, they might be used to enrich the discussion of nationalism. I argue, however, that both terms are hopelessly obscure, that they obfuscate analysis, because they are the stock-in-trade of nationalist ideologues and their academic allies, theorists addicted to primordialism. Devotees of ethnonationalism claim that successful nationhood is determined by a prior condition, "ethnic" solidarities of primordial vintage among the population seeking nation-statehood.15 They deny that nationstates can be built gradually by imagining, engineering, and manipulating identities labeled "ethnic" only in retrospect, despite the ample historical evidence of successfully "constructed" nation-states. It is true, however, that even the act of imagining and deliberately constructing a nation-state requires cognitive building blocks for mobilizing and manipulating people. Identities are indeed fashioned from existing attributes of the population to be mobilized. In admitting this we must be careful nevertheless not to fall into the primordialist error of claiming that 15 See Craig Calhoun, "Nationalism and Ethnicity," American Review of Sociology 19 (1993): 211-39. This piece contains an excellent literature review concerning the debate over the importance of ethnonationalism, a concept that gained sudden currency because of the barbarisms of ethnic cleansing associated with the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Calhoun, though conceding the confusion and verbal redundancies I mention, wishes to rescue the notion of ethnonationalism by reserving it for what others call "subnational" movements, efforts to create new identities by minorities (however self-defined) within established nation-states and claiming the right to secede from them. Crawford Young, Politics of Cultural Pluralism, pp. 12-13, says that he uses the term communal as a synonym for cultural and that ethnic means essentially the same thing as cultural, linguistic, or racial as an identifier of solidarity and identity.

27

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

such attributes are also the "objective" definers of nationhood. These attributes are those listed by Schlesinger. Note that he uses the term "ethnic" as if it were something tangible, additional to such identity markers as race, language, and religion, instead of a collective synonym for them. I argue that race, religion, and language are the markers that are used as building blocks for new identities by political entrepreneurs seeking to fashion nationstates. I use "culture" as a collective term to encompass all three. I add one further building-block: socioeconomic status. The dissatisfaction suffered by the mobilized-unassimilated is due to perceived deprivation or discrimination on the basis of culture and/or status. As a rule of thumb I suggest that a successful nationalist movement challenging some status quo requires that the mobilized-unassimilated feel deprived on the basis of at least two of the four possible constituents of a new identity. Status as shaper of identity. The term equality is shorthand for talking about perceptions of status deprivation. One of the chief motivations for political action is the rectification of such perceived deprivation, the improvement of one's condition relative to that coveted and already attained by someone else. The striving to improve the income of one's group, the opportunities for upward mobility by means of access to educational facilities, the recognition of one's native language as a means for achieving these benefits, or the opportunity for learning a more useful language—all these are standard instruments to improve one's status. Because it implies the elimination of barriers between classes or other status groups, the improvement of one's status is the same thing as striving for equality. In politics this search includes the demands to participate in decision making and for equality under the law. When does status (or income) deprivation become a definer of identity? What does it have to do with nationalism? Striving for equality may serve as a boundary marker for group solidarity in its own right or in combination with cultural boundary markers. In the second case the phenomenon known as a cultural division of labor obtains: street sweepers in India are members of the former scheduled castes, and most domestic servants in Brazil are blacks. However, the bourgeois nationalists in western Europe, whose demands created the modern nation-states, defined their solidarity in terms of class (not race or ritual) and in the search for equality alone. The search for equality is the most pervasive and the most basic definer of group solidarity. It becomes a definer of political identity when it is reinforced by cultural differentials and by active discrimination on the part of the ruling elite. Culture as shaper of identity. An elite culture is a system of meanings that encompasses geographically scattered collectivities and individuals who may never encounter one another in person. It uses a language sophisticated enough to articulate and communicate abstract ideas about law, 28

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity

cosmology, origins, futures, and science; it maintains itself through the medium of specialized skill-and-status groups, such as clerics, administrators, and nobles, as well as academics or mandarins. In premodern times, important elite cultures were the Latin-based Christian system of meanings in western Europe, Greek-based Christianity in eastern Europe, Arabic-based Islam in North Africa and West Asia, and Mandarin-based Confucian culture in East Asia. A folk culture lacks specialized skill groups, prevails in small, compact, but relatively isolated localities, and lacks a language capable of expressing abstract and potentially universal ideas, though it may be very rich in conveying powerful meanings in small groups. India and Switzerland contain more than one linguistically defined group of citizens; Brazil and Indonesia count several races; many countries contain several very self-conscious religious communities. Are all these groups actual or potential "nations" with a marked identity within their present states? Are they potential secessionists who challenge the right of the present state to call itself a nation-state? Sikhs, Gujaratis, Tamils, and Bengalis are indeed potential nations if enough people identified with each religiously, racially, and linguistically defined group opt for the more restricted identity, opt for secession. But if they instead continue to subordinate their separate identities to a common Indian identity that they recognize as encompassing and superseding the local attachments, they remain Indian nationalists and supporters of the Indian nation-state, multicultural though it is. Multiculturalism may, but need not, be inconsistent with nation-statehood. One hundred fifty years of civil peace in multicultural Switzerland make my point; all four Swiss cultural groups define themselves as Swiss above all else. All depends on the character of the rationalization formula adopted as each country moves away from its origins. Ethnonationalism: Is it a useful concept? Why did the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, both multicultural entities, break up in 1991, whereas Britain, Spain, and France, also multicultural, did not? Note that in all these cases the dissatisfied were fully mobilized decades if not centuries ago. Moreover, they were fully assimilated into the elite culture to the extent that they wished to be assimilated; they were not the victims of systematic discrimination for being Slovene, Lithuanian, Welsh, Catalan, or Breton. It was not the mobilized-but-unassimilated in Central Asia and Ukraine who seceded, but members of the Uzbek, Turkmen, and Ukrainian communist elites, who, formally speaking, were as assimilated into Soviet elite culture as one could be according to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. Proponents of ethnonationalism seize on these events to insist on the importance of the concept. They point out that secession in these situa29

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Lions had nothing to do with perceptions of inequality or economic or political discrimination. The disaffection of peoples with one another is due entirely to historical memories of cultural oppression or deprivation.'6 Often peasant cultures are pressed into service as a source of themes for reviving the old solidarities because elite cultural themes are being rejected as inauthentic and imposed. Put differently, the primordial Urgeist has risen once more to challenge rational-secular-liberalMarxist conceptions of progress. The facts alleged by the modern primordialists are only partly accurate because some of the resurgent ethnic groups are the beneficiaries of artificially created or state-encouraged identities of quite recent vintage. But in many instances—notably in Serbia and Croatia—the primordialist argument seems superficially compelling. I respond that the instrumental theory of nationalism is powerful enough to encompass these situations and that the concept of ethnonationalism is as unnecessary as it is fuzzy and ideologically charged. The socalled ethnonationalist behavior of some groups is just as instrumental and reasoned a response to perceived discrimination—albeit not based on status—as are the demands of the mobilized-unassimilated in the later stages of modernization. The fact that the "ethnonationalist" response stresses cultural markers rather than socioeconomic ones does not make it irrational or rooted in some primordial instinct. How, after all, does an ethnie differ from any other kind of culturally self-defined unit that owes its origin to some state-builder or nation-builder? Hence I make no use of the distinction between "ethnic" and "civic" conceptions of national identity. The contrast is ahistorical because it makes fluid situations appear to be fixed, deliberately constructed solidarities to seem eternal and organic. Rationalization via Liberal Nationalism: Is It Possible? Much of the Third World, including several countries studied in this volume, is undergoing "transitions to democracy." Success would consist 16 Anthony D. Smith argues that the extent to which nations are "imagined" by nationalists is limited by certain prior cultural features of a primordial kind; therefore, the instrumental nation-building efforts of communist elites were bound to fail. See his "Ethnic Identity and Territorial Nationalism in Comparative Perspective," in Alexander J. Motyl, ed., Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), Pp. 47-48. David Laitin explores in detail the modal circumstances under which incomplete assimilation into the elite culture occurs even though opportunities for complete assimilation exist in many cases, and when and why such incomplete assimilation develops into an "ethnonationalism" that can become political. He shows brilliantly that no primordial mysteries are needed to explain such processes, in "The National Uprisings in the Soviet Union," World Politics 44, no. 1 (1991): 139-77.

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Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity of the institutionalization of peaceful constitutional processes and of the rule of law. However, it is difficult to conceive of the success of institutional democracy without the prior acceptance of liberalism-as-process. Without it, the eventual triumph of the values associated with liberalismas-justice is unlikely to occur. In short, successful democratic rationalization is linked tightly to the triumph of liberal nationalist myths.'' Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan argue that successful democratic consolidation depends on these conditions: a free and lively civil society, an understanding by the members of civil society that the constituent groups contest the ability to control the state and public policy, and the acceptance of the rule of law as the definer of arenas and processes of contestation. In short, liberalism-as-process is made coterminous with successful democratic consolidation. In addition, the existence of a competent state bureaucracy able to mediate skillfully as regulator between state and market is helpful. Unfortunately, we already know that the preconditions for this benign evolution do not exist in many Third World countries. Take the cases analyzed in this volume. Transitions to democracy in the following instances start from an institutional and value background of integralism that violates some of the desirable conditions: China, Brazil, and Mexico. In Egypt, Iran, and Russia various strands of syncretism heavily influence the social background from which liberalism is to grow. This situation ought to alert us to the strong possibility that rationalization under democratic auspices in these countries will follow a dynamic different from paths and patterns associated with industrialized countries. Liberal nationalism may not triumph. Even rationalization as nationstates under protoliberal auspices remains in doubt's Perhaps Linz and Stepan make it so by insisting on their set of conditions, which are a stylized version of the experience associated with the British tradition. There, gradual social mobilization, the emergence of a highly educated group of unassimilated claimants for access to political and economic power, as well as to social status, produced rationalization by means of dramatic institutional changes mediated by liberal processes (though not " My discussion of transitions to democracy is based essentially on Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 18 Gellner modified his earlier implicit equation of modernization, secularization, liberalism, and progress after his experiences in "democratizing" Russia. In the face of subnationalist revivals in the former Soviet Union, he began to doubt that nationalism is necessarily a rationalizing agent as long as the existing "centralized" state is seen as that agent. Thus, in Gellner's last work, the evident derationalization of the formerly centralized state might well not imply the rationalization of the seceding units under the auspices of their own nationalisms. If the successor potential nations fight genocidal wars with one another, they are unlikely to achieve rationalization. See his introduction to Sukumar Periwal, ed., Notions of Nationalism (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1995).

3r

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

always by liberal values). Moreover, when rationalization seemed to falter, the British political classes were able to learn, to change their ways of thinking about the causes of social harmony and strife. Most of the countries studied in this volume are still undergoing social mobilization. The mobilized segments are not necessarily predisposed by experience and belief to practice liberalism. They do not consistently meet the conditions set out by Linz and Stepan, though some are moving in the right direction. Moreover, in most instances the nation-building role assumed, in Europe, by the state is being poorly acted out in much of the Third World and in Russia because state-building and nation-building are being attempted simultaneously. That means the multiplicity of pressures put on the state by social groups and regions undergoing rapid social mobilization is at least as disturbing to rationalization as the reverse influence exercised by the state over these groups. As Linz and Stepan note, nation-building and state-building policies remain incongruent. Hence no civil religion can emerge under such circumstances and no agreement on peaceful change, social equity, or relations with the outside world. Those are the implications of the developmental paths associated especially with our Types D and E.19 Globalism and Localism as Enemies of the Nation-State As if these considerations were not enough to cast doubt on the ability of many Third World polities to achieve rationalized nation-statehood under any ideological auspices, not merely under liberalism, globalism and localism have recently arrived as additional forces hostile to statecentered nationalism. In the experience of the industrial countries a distinct cycle is discernible. A rationalized polity emerged as a result of successful nation-building and state-building by a socially mobilized elite unable or unwilling to assimilate into the traditional order. In some cases the state preceded the nation; in others a single national identity emerged in several adjoining states that subsequently merged. Eventually, partly as a result of the political consequences of economic globalization (or, at least, regionalization) and partly as the result of losing wars or empires, nationalism declines in fervor, collective learning leads to attempts at problem solving in fora other than the nation-state, and the nationstate ceases to be the terminal community for many of its inhabitants. Nationalism, earlier a progressive force, loses its relevance with respect 19 Linz and Stepan spell out in detail the different difficulties and tasks facing regimes seeking democratic consolidation. They distinguish between these antecedent regime types: authoritarian, totalitarian, post-totalitarian, and sultanism. On the whole, they find authoritarian and post-totalitarian regimes more likely to succeed than the others, though no transition is smooth. See especially their tables 4-2 and 4-3.

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Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity

to the continued assurance of progress. There are reasons for suspecting that this cycle will not operate in much of the Third World. The main forces that may make the nation-state obsolete are globalism and globalization as well as their opposite, the drive toward local autonomy, or localism. Both suggest that the nation-state may not ever become humankind's terminal community in the Third World. All depends on whether the social processes we label globalization and localization move faster than the incongruent forces that inhibit simultaneous nation and state formation. To keep the disaffected mobilized/unassimilated groups from seceding, the state must be able to satisfy their demands. It must strive to keep the source of disaffection confined to one of these: race, religion, language, and inequality; any combination of two or more will tax the meliorative powers of new states. It is just as likely that most Third World states will simply skip the nation-state stage; if they achieve rationalization at all, it will be under the auspices of some other principle.2° Globalization of production and investment is a palpable fact as the third millennium opens. Money moves even more freely among countries than do goods and commodities. Labor is only slightly less mobile. Everywhere the protective shields public policy had devised to protect domestic consumers and employees from some of the vicissitudes of international competition are in bad repair. Free markets and unrestrained competition are seen as the engines of everybody's progress. Unemployment, low wages, illegal immigration, and leaky safety nets are seen as mere short-run drawbacks, soon to be forgotten as the global division of labor marches on. Those who favor globalization believe that we will all be better off in the long run by relying on free markets and therefore have no need for the regulatory power of the nation-state. Those who lament the passing of embedded liberalism foretell a future of strong multilateral institutions to compensate for the sins of free markets. They too see little future for the autonomous nation-state that once ensured the polity's rationalization. Third World countries, therefore, face challenges to the very desirability of the nation-state which the European and North American nations did not experience. For Third World countries, the institution of the nation-state may get in the way of progress. In order for the nation-state 2° For arguments that the nation-state and ethnic identities are here to stay as terminal communities, see David P. Calleo, "Reflections on the Idea of the Nation-State," and George Schopflin, "Nationalism and Ethnicity in Europe," in Charles A. Kupchan, ed., Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). The case for globalism is made by Philip G. Cerny, "Globalization and the Changing Logic of Collective Action," International Organization (Autumn 1995): 595-626, and by John Ruggie, At Home Abroad, Abroad at Home, Jean Monnet Chair Papers no. 20 (San Domenico: European University Institute, 1995).

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS to be valued, governing elites would have to be able to ensure rapid economic and social development without relying either on global markets or on strong multilateral institutions to rescue them when the markets fail to deliver progress. That is a tall order. "Think globally, act locally" is the current slogan of voluntary groups in rich countries devoted to world peace, disarmament, and global ecological health. The issues of concern are global, but the remedies lie close to home, whether in the form of economic boycotts of evildoers, nuclear free zones, or charities mounted by local forces. There is much talk of cross-border alliances among regions, provinces, and cities. Transnational interest and advocacy groups are a growing feature of the global landscape. Transnational alliances among groups of committed activists sometimes shame states into changing their policies. In some European countries regionally concentrated minorities articulate claims about their identity that eschew the notion of nationstatehood altogether. Suppose subnational groups in India, Nigeria, or Brazil, as they are fully socially mobilized, come to feel as many modern Catalonians do?21 Catalonia is Spain's most modern and its wealthiest province. Its people speak and value highly the Catalan language. They enjoy a great deal of self-government, travel widely in western Europe, and are fully part of the global economy. When queried about their national loyalties, they profess to be Catalonian first, European second, and Spanish last. Being part of "Europe," participating actively in the construction of a supranational democratic Europe, is a matter of great importance to their sense of identity, to their sense of not being primarily Spanish. But let us not overstate their separatism. Many Catalonians work and prosper in Spain outside Catalonia and are prominent in Spanish government, business, and the professions. And many poor Andalusians migrate to Catalonia to seek to better themselves. National identity is thus diffused functionally, culturally, and geographically. As an antidote to nation-statehood, localism linked to extranational ties can be a lively competitor. THE STAYING POWER OF SYNCRETISM We have impugned the argument that nationalism everywhere combines secularism with liberalism to result in rationalization and progress. In the preceding section we examined a number of arguments that cast doubt on the Third World's repeating the experience of the older na21 David Laitin, "The Cultural Identities of a European State," Politics and Society (September 1997): 277-302.

34

Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity tions. None of these arguments is as powerful as the continued relevance of religion to politics. In my scheme that relevance is expressed in the nationalist ideologies I call syncretist. Because syncretisms are found so generously in these case studies, I devote most of this section to an exploration of the meaning of the Islamic tradition in politics. I concentrate on Twelver Shi'ism as it impinged on Iranian history as my introductory illustration. Religion, Secularism, and Nationalism Imagine a venturesome Egyptian voyaging to Paris in the 185os to study the magic of electricity. He may have arrived with nascent doubts about the truth of the knowledge of the natural world which he had been taught in his Quranic studies in Cairo, but his faith in Islam remained unshaken. Did it hold up as he was introduced to the deist or agnostic ontological basis of modern science? Probably he gradually began to question aspects of the Islamic creed without jettisoning it entirely in favor of a thoroughly materialistic worldview. For a long time, our young Egyptian physicist sought to combine two worldviews that—in principle—are not reconcilable. But he managed to combine them for decades, at least sufficiently to function simultaneously as a modern physicist and as an acceptable member of his faith. Syncretist institutions and beliefs are the socially constructed practices of people imbued with Western notions of causality and with traditional understandings of the world. They manage to mix and meld them to build themselves a polity in which they feel comfortable. The question is, Given the incompatibilities in practice between the materialist and the traditional, how long can the mixture last? That it can last long is made evident in the overdrawn forecast about the culture of the early twenty-first century hazarded by Herman Kahn and Anthony Wiener in 1967. They projected a "basic, long-term multifold trend" that was to feature "increasingly sensate (empirical, this-worldly, secular, humanistic, pragmatic, utilitarian, contractual, epicurean or hedonistic, and the like) cultures."22 Their forecast came true in much of the world. But why did it fail to anticipate the rebirth of otherworldly, spiritual, dogmatic, impractical, ascetic, belligerent movements and cultures almost everywhere, within the very bowels of modernity and strivings to modernize? How can secular and sacred belief systems coexist in situations in which neither has won a full victory over the other? Do religiously based 22 As quoted by Martin E. Marty, "Too Bad We're So Relevant," Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (March 1996): 26.

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value systems dominate the secular or the other way around? Are the compromises we can observe to be taken as permanent? Even if, in principle, the two are really deadly enemies, short-term accommodations may nevertheless appear in the outcomes we seek to explain. Thus fundamentalists of all kinds—Protestant, Shi'ite, Buddhist—though of course poised against modernity and secular values, may nevertheless be thought of as exercising influence over the eventual shape of a national myth. In polities rationalized along secular lines religiosity may be alive and well. If so, religion makes no claims on the public weal. Private belief and practice following a certain religious ethic, because it is not made the subject of generalized claims on the state, is fully consistent with the victory of the secular that goes with the advent of revolutionary nationalism. Religion is not an ideological rival of revolutionary nationalism as long as the believer also accepts the legitimacy of public action to improve human welfare on grounds he or she may reject in his or her private life. Revolutionary nationalism may also tolerate "civil religions"; it may even seek to foist a "political religion" on its people. Syncretist nationalisms all seek to include some form of official "state religion" in their rationalizing formula. The very idea of an official state religion is alien to secular nationalists because such a status implies a compulsory, monopolistic, and institutionalized advocacy of key spiritual values that the lay leaders of the state must accept as their own—or at least pretend to accept. Conversely, secularizing political religions are pseudoreligions: doctrines, rituals, and icons that are modeled on the truly religious but project purely hitherworldly values. Institutionalized Marxism-Leninism illustrates the technique. The "religion" practiced by the Jacobins in the 179os does so as well, as do the Nazi substitutes for Christian baptism. Rousseau's civil religion was patriotism, expressed in terms suggestive of religious ritual. Citizens of Corsica were to swear: "In the name of God Almighty and on the holy Gospels I herewith, by a sacred and irrevocable oath, bind myself with my body, my property, my will, and all my might to the Corsican nation, to belong to it in complete ownership with all my dependents. I swear to live and die for it, to observe all its laws, and to obey all its legitimate chiefs and officials in everything conforming to the laws."23 " As quoted by Salo W. Baron, Modern Nationalism and Religion (New York: Harper, 1947), p. 27. Alliances between syncretist nationalisms and religion are illustrated by Fred von der Mehden, Religion and Modernization in Southeast Asia (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), and Peter Merkl and Ninian Smart, eds., Religion and Politics in the Modern World (New York: New York University Press, 1983). The classical piece on political religions is David E. Apter, "Political Religion in the New Nations," in Clifford Geertz, ed., Old Societies and New States (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1963), pp. 57-104.

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Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity I use the term civil religion, in a sense not intended by Rousseau, to mean "a belief in a framework of national symbols, rituals, traditions, and institutions that, in expressing the common ethic of a people, also reveals a dimension of purposeful and transcendent ultimacy," presumably a divinity and a divine realm.24 True civil religions represent bodies of religious themes, each legitimated by its own theology, ritual, and institutions, that overlap sufficiently to serve as the common foundation for a culturally pluralistic society. Civil religions rest on genuine, not manipulated, religiosity. The churches forego the temptation to impose their particular preferences by using the state apparatus, in contrast to official state religions. In the United States the acceptance of the Judeo-Christian ethic into the common culture constitutes a civil religion, as does the Catholicism institutionalized in post-Franco Spain. That leaves us with official state religions, the typical companions of syncretist rationalization formulas. Such religions seek to ensure the coexistence of traditional organized religions with a state that aims both to introduce and to limit and channel the challenge of modernity. The rulers face the issue of how much secularism to admit, how much of the sacred legitimation of government and public morals to give up or amend. Although dissenters who do not prove too troublesome may be tolerated, an established, official state religion will at a minimum define the pantheon of official values. No separation of private from public religiosity is countenanced. Private worship is expected to include the very value orthodoxy that the official church represents. State and church ally to provide the only acceptable body of ethical doctrine, the only authentic definition of the national spiritual self. The clergy are civil servants. They dominate the school system. Established churches are part of the state. This relationship is most evident when religious fundamentalists dominate state and church, as expressed in restorative-nationalist formulas. At the reformist end of the syncretist spectrum, however, things are different. Here, hierarchy and bureaucracy make it possible for key individuals to advocate and to lead religious reform movements that correspond to similar efforts in the secular realm. Organizations provide the opportunities for the authors of new ideologies to seek schools, funds, and missions for the further diffusion of the reformed creed. Research centers may be created to flesh out the ideology and to train acolytes. Moreover, if the religion in question tolerates a number of sects within it, each of these is a 24 Spencer Bennett, "Civil Religion in a New Context," in Gustavo Benavides and M. W. Daly, eds., Religion and Political Power (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 151. This conception of civil religion is most clearly articulated by Philip E Hammond, "The Conditions for Civil Religion," in Robert Bellah and Philip E. Hammond, eds., Varieties of Civil Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), pp. 40-85.

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potential messenger and missionary for the new ideology, especially if each offshoot in turn has at its disposal funds, schools, orphanages, and easy access to the public school system via some civil-religious mechanism. Secularization may then develop, even if only as an unintended consequence. I hypothesize that political religions and state religions have typical elective affinities for certain kinds of nationalist ideologies, suggesting a possible progression from the traditional to the secular and modern, as shown in figure 1-3.25 The pursuit of this hypothesis implies, I must admit, that some of the Deutschian model on which I have relied must be modified. In Third World countries in which religion continues to define much of nationalist politics, the role Deutsch (and Gellner) assign to the socially mobilized but unassimilated strata of the population does not seem to apply. There the unassimilated do not resent their differentiation from those who are willing to play the roles into which modernization has cast them. They resent the fact of modernization itself. They do not wish to be mobilized. Alternatively, they demand to be assimilated on their terms, not by following the rules a modernizing society imposes. Hence the liberalism for which the Western model shows an elective affinity once more turns out to be marginal. The ideological content of the nationalism professed by those resentful of the very fact of modernization is reactive and defensive, not revolutionary in wishing to jettison the past and ring in the new. And yet syncretism may still turn out to be a successful rationalizer! Figure 1-3. Transformation of state religions Activities in or by religious institutions

Spin-off nationalisms

Traditional actions by state-religious authorities Reformist forces and movements inside churches
Restorative syncretism

Secular movements retaining civil-religious elements Reformist, traditional syncretisms Fully secular forces and movements
Liberalism, integralism

SOURCE: Adapted from D. E. Smith, Religion and Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973),P- 24425 D. E. Smith, Religion and Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), is the source of this argument. Catholic Action and its associated organizations illustrate the transformative dynamic demonstrated by Smith. It shows how earlier conservative forms, inspired by the encyclical Rerum Novarum, could eventually develop into the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutierrez and his followers in Latin America and Europe.

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Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity Tension in the Umma Islamic civilizations illustrate the unresolved tension between modernity infused with nationalism and premodern life focused on sacred loyalties and sites only remotely connected with politics and polities. Syncretist nationalisms, by definition, seek to master this tension in such a way as not to surrender outright to the secular nation-state. They seek to rationalize their fragmented societies by finding a formula that acknowledges the nation as the terminal community while giving it an institutional content that respects the sacred tradition. As we know, syncretist nationalisms differ in their devotion to the sacred, ranging from fundamentalist restorers of a purity already thought tainted by reality, to traditionalists willing to compromise with the past, and even to reformers who wish to retain only a veneer of the sacred. The task is not easy for any of them. In principle, Islam is both a faith and a civilization, because the faith dictates the details of public and private life. The legal code, the Shari'a, is derived from the Quran and the Sunna, the recorded sayings and doings of the Prophet Mohammed and his immediate circle of supporters and successors. What matters most for the would-be syncretist is the question, Is the Sunna eternal and unchanging? If it is, then almost all political developments after the seventh century are illegitimate because they enshrine impiety. Few would take such an extreme stance. Thus, the question really is, Who can interpret the Sunna and what rules of interpretation are permissible? Muslims differ and have almost always differed in how they answer. There are differences between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims because Sunnis tend to be slightly more latitudinarian. Within Sunni Islam there are four established schools of jurisprudence that differ on how to balance reason, tradition, and the consensus of the faithful as sources of interpretation. Different theological traditions can be used to justify different compromises with nationalism. At this point we can sum matters up by saying that even though faith and government are interdependent, in practice there are degrees of interdependence. Premodern Islamic government derived most of its legitimacy from enforcing the sacred law, which connects daily life with the divine will. In the nineteenth century this changed as state and faith drifted apart, as the state became the focus of popular expectations not derived from the Shari'a. But as early as the eighth century the ideal of the pious Muslim state was being compromised to such an extent that Shi'ite Islam seceded from the community of believers (umma) to become a "purer" form. The contemporary tension between various kinds of syncretist nationalism in Muslim countries still pits those who hanker after some version of the ideal premodern synthesis against others who 39

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

entertain visions of life that accept the contemporary world and an autonomous state. And, of course, there are people in Muslim countries who want to break with the sacred tradition in all its forms: liberal and integral nationalists. The ideal Islamic polity unites all members of the umma in one pious organization. It does not recognize separate Muslim states as legitimate. The ruler of the Muslim realm, the caliph, has the duty to administer the Shari'a by means of judges appointed for that purpose and to defend the realm against the infidels by means of holy war ( jihad). In some versions that duty includes expanding the Muslim realm at the expense of the infidels and seeking their conversion to Islam. Failure to convert may have dire consequences unless the conquered are dhimmis, "people of the book," or non-Muslim monotheists Dhimmis are not to be persecuted, though they may be subjected to special taxation and may not serve in the government or the military. War among Muslims is not licit. The Sunna has little to say about the nature of a pious economy, except to forbid the charging of interest on loans. The only admissible taxes are the zakat and the khoms, both compulsory and payable to religious mentors.26 Much wealth was in the form of pious inalienable bequests to foundations (waqf) charged with administering and financing religious activities and buildings, including the salary of the learned who served as lawyers and clergy (ulama). The Shari'a-defined criminal law is draconian in its severity but very difficult to administer because of the rules of evidence used; civil law is underdeveloped, as revealed in the inferior and barely protected status of women. The hankering for such a polity, after the onset of social mobilization, is the essence of restorative-syncretist nation alism.27 The impious state, however, prevailed far more often, then as now. The prevailing condition of impiety features a multiplicity of Muslim states, often at war with each other ( fitna). State and religious institutions are not joined. The ruler may have cooperative arrangements with the ulama, or belligerent ones. A state-defined and administered criminal and civil 26 The zakat is a tax on some forms of property amounting to about 25 percent of value; khoms is a tax on some sources of income amounting to about 20 percent, though the rates varied. See Daniel Pipes, In the Path of God (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 45-46. 27 William McNeill, in summarizing the thorough study of fundamentalism sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, noted that three kinds of people typically turn to fundamentalism everywhere: peasants who recently migrated to cities looking for a substitute for the lost rural community (such as in Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran); peasants suddenly exposed to the vicissitudes of markets and abandoned by their traditional patrons (such as Protestant converts in Brazil, Mexico, and Central America); and urban lowermiddle-class people and professionals alienated from urban culture because of its perceived impersonality, its amorality of interpersonal relations, and the feeling of having been betrayed by the state (as in Egypt and the United States).

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law exists alongside the Shari'a-based judicial system; it often contains Western elements. The ruler may actively rely on dhimmis to staff his administration, his army or navy, because Muslims disdain such service or lack the necessary skills. In earlier times the ruler often depended on state-owned slaves for this purpose. Impious taxes (mukus) are levied rather than the zakat. The ruler manipulates the waqf for secular purposes and may even appropriate them entirely for state ends. Women and minorities are sometimes treated far more favorably than ordained by the Shari'a. The supremacy of religious authority over social life is effectively banished under these conditions, even before social mobilization has occurred. Then "the state becomes a superstructure with which the population does not identify itself and whose territorial boundaries and other forms of structure are basically irrelevant so long as it guarantees the preservation and, if possible, the expansion of religion."28 The rationalization of such a polity, after the onset of social mobilization, is the concern of traditional-syncretist nationalists. Its alteration to appropriate some of the content of a Western state while retaining its Islamic form is the objective of reformist syncretists. How Faith and the State Combined in Premodern Iran I now illustrate the alternation between pious and impious governance in premodern Iran.29 I end the story with the first burst of modernism, the crises that engulfed the traditional state at the dawn of the twentieth century. The drama of modernization and the massive and varied nationalist responses of the second half of the century are treated in the next chapter. A few explanations of Shi'ite theology and political theory are necessary. Whereas Sunni doctrine endows the entire Sunna with the ultimate authority for determining the legitimacy of secular rulership, Iranian Shi'ite theology reserves this role for the twelfth imam (descendant of and sole legitimate successor to the prophet Mohammed). He is the "hidden imam," the charismatic religious leader (mandi) who will redeem the faithful, ensure salvation, and bring about the end of time when he returns from occultation. Whoever speaks in his name during his occultation in effect rules the faithful. There has been no dearth of claimants for this role, the most recent being Ruhollah Khomeini. G. E. von Grunebaum, as cited in Pipes, Path of God, p. 62. This section is based on material taken from Said Amir Arjomand, ed., From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984); Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, eds., Expectations of the Millennium (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). 28 29

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

This form of Shi'ite theology became the official religion of Iran in 1501 when a mystic (Sufi) order, the Safavids, seized the government and founded a new dynasty. Until then, Shi'ites had lived among Sunnis as a minority and had considered all government impious and therefore sought to limit all contact with it. Political thinking was confined to rival definitions of the powers of the imam and to contradictory projections of the kind of rule the Mandi would establish—perhaps a nonterritorial religious utopia, or a pious state to serve as an exemplar to the world, or even a universal Muslim community. During the period of occultation, limited cooperation with the impious state was unavoidable. With the Safavid seizure of power the officials and ulama of Twelver Shi'ism became the Iranian state. However, the ruler, the "shahinshah," claimed to be the shadow of god on earth, to enjoy a divine charisma. He thus shunted the ulama aside as definers of legitimate authority, but he gave them a monopoly on the administration of the faith by creating a group of mujtahids, privileged interpreters of the law. He claimed to rule because of his love of justice and avoidance of injustice, as the Sunna enjoined, and because he descended from the seventh imam. To cover all bases, the Safavids also claimed legitimacy by calling themselves the descendants of the pre-Islamic Sassanid dynasty, which had professed Zoroastrianism. Safavid rule was caesaropapist; it downplayed the redemptive role of the twelfth imam. It also allowed the ulama full autonomy in theological matters as long as the clergy made no effort to influence the running of the state. This situation created a dual structure of political and spiritual power—in violation of orthodox Islam—and thus acted as a trigger for the first serious political theorizing in Iran. That theorizing pitted defenders of the dynasty against advocates of Islamic orthodoxy. It also saw the beginnings of a major split in how to apply the Shari'a: defenders of the eternal and unchanging nature of the law as against advocates of interpretation." Under the sway of the Qajar dynasty (1794-1925) the advocates of interpretation won out. The new doctrine held that in the absence of the twelfth imam, the Shah and the ulama share responsibility for ruling the " Fundamentalists who argued against the need for interpretation were known as Akhbaris; they developed strength in opposition to an elite group of ulama who were called into being by the state (the mujtahids) and given special powers to interpret the Sunna authoritatively. The Akhbaris were also supported by Sufis who resented the power of the mujtahids. The Usuli school of ulama held that the sacred texts were not clear and selfexplanatory but required systematic interpretation through the application of reason (a position long taken by certain Sunni jurists). By 1800 the Usuli faction represented the reigning orthodoxy and the power of the mujtahids as official interpreters was confirmed. Shaykh al-Tusi, one of their leaders, was the master of Khomeini. He condemned the Akhbaris as literalists who refused to reason.

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Nationalism between Tradition and Modernity polity. The Shah—"the sword"—is responsible for applying the law, albeit guided by "the pen"—the learned. However, as long as the Shah rules justly, the ulama has no right to meddle in government and the people must obey him. In practice, however, the role of the ulama in interpreting the law increased during the nineteenth century and the mujtahids acquired prestige far greater than during the rule of the Safavids. The right to declare jihad was assumed by the ulama; they used it to support the Shah in fighting Russia and to stiffen the Shah's hesitant policy against British encroachment. The resurgence of the political power of the ulama, however, was not matched by a clear demarcation of administrative and legal authority between sword and pen. The result was constant bickering over waqf, schools, and courts, and the confusion resulted in a split between politically oriented and primarily spiritual ulama. Control over financial resources was the key bone of contention. Cooperation between sword and pen fell victim to these rivalries as the Shahs again sought legitimation in pre-Islamic theories of kingship." The political ulama demanded reforms designed to strengthen the state against Western imperialism; they interpreted Islamic doctrine so as to legitimate their Westernizing innovations in terms of traditional rhetoric. In 1891 Mirza Hasan Shirazi, a prominent mujtahid, issued a religious decree (fatwa) denouncing the Shah's concessions to Britain, which sparked large-scale unrest and resulted, a few years later, in the demand for a Western-style constitution. Reformist-syncretist nationalism was born in Iran with Sayyid Muhammad Tabatabai's claim to unite people and ulama in a massive renewal of the state and society. Very few ulama, however, entertained a consistent commitment to systematic Westernizing reforms. Mass social mobilization was absent even during the constitutional movement of 1906. Nor were the contradictions inherent in various interpretations of Islam in its encounter with the West resolved then or later. Deep Doctrinal Contradictions in Islamic Renewal A common theme in all Islamic movements for political renewal is a profound ambivalence about the West. The number of liberals who unconditionally embraced Western ways is extremely small. Very few Middle Eastern intellectuals and politicians were willing to opt for a secu31 The chief theorists of early Qajar condominium between shah and ulama were Aga Sayyid Jafar ibn Abu Ishaq Kashfi, who published the main treatise in 1817, and around 1900, Mirza Muhammad Hasan Shirazi. Clerical opposition to Nasr ud-din Shah and his successor at the turn of the century was also fueled by that shah's personal immorality, his support for Sufism, his opposition to Shirazi's reformism, and his dislike of the West.

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larism that broke completely with the Islamic tradition. However, they remain deeply divided among the various possibilities of syncretist compromise. Modernity in its totality is rejected by none, though the Western origins of modernity are downplayed by most. Syncretists tend to scapegoat the West. The failings of modern Islamic societies are laid at the doorstep of the West. Conspiracies of alleged Western origin, beginning with the Crusades, are the stock-in-trade of Islamic intellectuals unwilling to criticize radically their own institutions. In the words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: The British imperialists penetrated the countries of the East more than three hundred years ago. Being knowledgeable about all aspects of these countries, they drew up elaborate plans for assuming control of them. . . . They felt that the major obstacle in the path of their materialistic ambitions and the chief threat to their political power was nothing but Islam and its ordinances and the belief of the people in Islam. They therefore plotted and campaigned against Islam by various means. . . . The agents of imperialism, together with the education, propaganda and political apparatuses of the anti-national puppet governments they have installed, have been spreading poison for centuries and corrupting the minds and morals of the people.32 Islamic fundamentalism, the return to the literal application of the Sunna, is not the same thing as restorative syncretism. Fundamentalism need not evoke any nationalist themes; it may simply focus on the totality of the umma. It is only when fundamentalism seeks to stage a comeback within the confines of a specific polity—as in Iran—that the umma in question becomes coterminous with the local nation. Fundamentalism, being a populist, mobilizing force, is then forced to become nationalist, at least temporarily. Fundamentalism and restorative syncretism become one only then. Combined, they become a movement for the rerationalization of a "nation" under the auspices of a creed that the restorers consider in disarray, held in contempt by the rulers against whom they are rebelling. Political restoration is considered necessary for the restoration of the faith; thus the restorers inadvertently shore up the already existing state, corrupted though it is. Traditional and reformist syncretists think in less apocalyptic terms. They held power in Egypt and the Ottoman empire in the last half of the nineteenth century. Islamic traditional syncretists resemble some of the Meiji reformers who were their contemporaries. Their attitude toward the faith was pragmatic, if not opportunistic. The overall objective was not to restore the past glory of Islamic civilization and belief but to use it " As quoted in Pipes, Path of God, p. 184.

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to justify selective innovations designed to hold the West at bay while adopting those Western ways that appeared to be progressive—mostly industry, science, and mass education. That objective involved the copying of many institutions and of some values (such as hard work, individual achievement, and dedication to civic duties), not just techniques. For the traditional syncretist, the ideological task is the reinterpretation of Islam to justify these innovations. Hence intellectuals, clerical and lay, who sought these changes cultivated an approach to Islamic learning that sought to give a modern meaning to the sacred texts, such as legitimating parliamentary rule, mass secular education, and peaceful relations with non-Muslim countries. Liberal nationalists in Islamic countries tend to ridicule these efforts.33 They deny that respect for human rights, the equality of women, and democracy are implied by certain verses and sayings of the Sunna. But they do argue that the culture of Islam, as opposed to Shari'a-based policies, can and ought to be made compatible with values of the European Enlightenment. Such a reconciliation is considered possible if tolerance for differences of opinion is inculcated. 33 See Bassam Tibi, "The European Tradition of Human Rights and the Culture of Islam," and Elizabeth Mayer, "Current Muslim Thinking on Human Rights," in Abdullah Admed an-Naim and Francis M. Deng, eds., Human Rights in Africa (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 199o). See pp. 117-28 for a list of human rights that contemporary reformist-syncretists want to legitimate on the basis of a new interpretation of the Quran. In Iran, Abdol Karim Soroush is developing an interpretation of Islam that is explicitly designed to reconcile it with liberalism. Similar efforts are being made by Egypt's Hassan Hanafi, Algeria's Mohammad Arkoun, and Tunisia's Rashid Ghannouchi.

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CHAPTER TWO

Iran and Egypt

Why did God allow the Christians to rule over the house of Islam? Why did God allow the Jews to take Palestine and holy Jerusalem? Why does God allow the Christians to live like sultans in our land while we live like slaves in their land? This is God's punishment. And this is God's test. Muslims have left the path of Islam. Young people do not pray. The rich do not pray. Muslim girls bare their bodies like Christian women. And they walk hand in hand with their lovers. . . . The Christian domination is the wrath of God. —A Moroccan peddler, in Henry Munson, Jr., Islam and Revolution in the Middle East

The West shook up literate and sophisticated cultures in South and East Asia and in Mesoamerica, as well as in the Middle East. India, China, and Japan adjusted to the challenge, weathering it by learning from the imperialist, or by adapting his values, institutions, and techniques by means of syncretist nationalisms. In Mesoamerica, however, the imperialist destroyed the Mayan and Aztec cultures. Islamic society survived the Western onslaught without successfully learning or adapting. Islamic culture in Iran and Egypt was more severely Outstanding research assistance on Iran was done by Richard Snyder and Karen Adelberger, and on Egypt by Ellis Goldberg and Arun Swamy. Alex Volchegursky compiled the tables of modernization and social mobilization. Richard Snyder and Houchang Chehabi criticized and corrected the treatment of Iran; Nazli Choucri, Fred Lawson, and James Rosberg did the same for the part on Egypt. All saved me from many mistakes. They are not responsible for the ones that remain. I thank all of them!

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Iran and Egypt

shaken by the West's secular instrumentalism than was true in India and China. Egyptian and Iranian elites responded by blaming the intruder, not their own values and institutions, for their ambivalence about choosing between tradition and modernity. Why did Iran and Egypt fail to find ideologies that could deliver successful rationalization? Why did liberal and integralist solutions never take root? Was it all the fault of "the Christians," for taking advantage of the sins of impious Muslims? If so, restorative-syncretist rationalization formulas ought to have resolved the ambivalence. But they succeeded no more than did other nationalist ideologies. One purpose of this chapter is to establish the weakness of liberal, integral, and syncretist nationalisms in resolving Muslim ambivalence about the West. A liberal-nationalist solution would have enshrined a constitutional regime based on the customary civil liberties and opted for a definition of citizenship that would attempt to blend what the various extant religions professed to have in common. Liberalism in Iran and Egypt was never popular enough to dare such innovations. Integralism prevailed in both countries from the 195os through the 197os, yielding to reformist syncretism in Egypt and to restorative syncretism in Iran. Integralism calls for totalitarian institutions and an organic sense of national unity that is to bring about a total secular revolution in the nation's way of life. Restorative syncretism seeks to correct the evils of impiety by reestablishing premodern values and institutions (though spurning premodern techniques, such as an agricultural economy and technologically primitive armed forces). Reformist syncretism, however, is willing to seek a compromise with secular values and institutions: it tolerates competitive elections and parliaments with a modicum of legislative power, modern capitalism or socialism, civil rights, and an educational system restrained by an obligatory sense of religious cohesion. It now comes close to defining Egypt's national identity—without being able to rationalize the country. Iran's integralist regime was overthrown by an opposition professing restorative syncretism. It too proved unable to rationalize its society in the face of modernist yearnings that can no longer be wished away with appeals to piety and repressive rule. What emerged in Iran is a compromise: a traditional-syncretist nationalism that continues to proclaim Islamic values as the only legitimate ones but tolerates some Western political and economic institutions while encouraging most Western techniques for organizing the economy and the state. Nationalism came to these countries by following our Type B (see table 1-3). It came first to Egypt, where the strata mobilized but not successfully assimilated by Britain, could never agree among themselves whether they wanted a liberal, an integralist, or a reformed Muslim state. In Iran the liberals were always very weak, possibly because the rate and amount of 47

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social mobilization lagged far behind Egypt's. Iran, after all, had never completely lost its independence; neither Russia nor Britain ran a normal colonial government there. Neither Iran nor Egypt was fully mobilized until the 197os, when liberalism had no audience at all because the mobilization had been the work of integralist-nationalist regimes. Egypt was best rationalized under integralist auspices, Iran under restorative-syncretist rule. Neither managed to keep its society rationalized for very long. The values and institutions of governance proved to be shallowly rooted and were challenged as social mobilization and modernization continued apace. Mobilization was fomented by the very ideas and policies associated with integralism and restorative syncretism. The prophets of Egyptian and Iranian nationalism undermined their own work because they could not control the aspirations of those whom they mobilized successfully. Islam shaped nationalist politics in both countries, but in very different ways. The Shah persecuted Islam in his efforts to give Iran a secular myth; this triggered an active opposition that found institutional expression in the network of seminaries and mosques and among the followers of revered cleric-sages. Had the Shah seen fit to seek an alliance with the liberal and reformist-syncretist nationalists—whom he spurned—he might have stopped the orthodox clerical resurgence. Nasser, somewhat less consistently, also sought to secularize Egyptian public life, and he persecuted his Islamic opposition brutally. Anwar Sadat, his successor, however, allied himself with the Muslim Brotherhood in order to eliminate left-wing integralists when he began to abandon Arab Socialism as the country's national myth. Sadat found a compromise with Islam; the Shah did not even try. Khomeini, once he had established his restorative regime, proved unwilling to compromise its rigor. His successors, however, did! As Egypt became more Islamic, Iran grew more reformist. Both regimes proved that they could learn when facing what they saw as likely failure. The initial revolutionary ideologies did not define eventual outcomes in either case. What, then, does predict outcomes? My epistemological commitment does not allow me to make predictions, or even link antecedent conditions directly and unambiguously to observed outcomes, let alone predict events that have not yet occurred. I accept only the "causal" logic of elective affinities among values and institutions. I hold that values shape institutions, when they are first created, and concede that later value choices are constrained by institutions-in-place. Thus, certain types of values and certain varieties of institutions go together to shape behavior. Other combinations are unlikely to occur. But the elective affinities among them are rarely so strong as to foreclose the ability of human actors to change their minds, to adapt, to learn, and thus change their 48

Iran and Egypt values as well as the institutions that constrain them. As long as I am committed to favoring agency over structure, I cannot and do not subscribe to a stronger notion of causality. Elective affinities suggest likely ranges of outcomes, the kind illustrated in this chapter. They cannot explain more.

IRAN THE CHALLENGE TO TRADITIONAL SOCIETY State and Society in Qajar Iran It is quite wrong to think of nineteenth-century Iran as a society living in a territorial state all Iranians recognized, ruled by a monarch all venerated. Social solidarities were defined by tribal and clan ties, guild membership, adherence to religious organizations, and personalistic ties among families of merchants animating the bazaar economy. These merchants then intermarried with land- and other property-owning ulama. Social solidarities were also defined by believers' choosing a prominent religious leader to follow and to emulate. Russia and Britain stirred this society into self-conscious resistance and self-awareness, by provoking the subjects of the Shah to rebel against him and the society over which he presided. Iran's march toward nationstatehood conforms to our Type B, as the anti-imperialists sought to give themselves an identity made up partly of the traditional elite culture and partly of Western notions. But neither has yet to win a final victory. Nor has a rationalization formula that combines both found legitimacy in the eyes of most Iranians. Iran's population rose from 5 to io million people during the nineteenth century, 92 percent of them illiterate in I goo, over half of whom lived in small, economically self-sufficient agricultural settlements. Another 10 to 20 percent were members of nomadic tribes—Turkomans, Bakhtiaris, Qashqa'is, Baluchis. Tribal groups did not speak Persian as their first language; neither did the Kurdish, Azeri, Armenian, and Arab minorities. Persian was used only in the major cities and the central plateau. Although the majority professed Twelver Shi'ism, some of the border peoples were Sunni Muslims. There were also small minorities of Armenian and Assyrian Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Baha'i. The Shi'ite ulama occupied a central role in holding together many aspects of Iranian society. They controlled large portions of the economy by virtue of receiving taxes and administering waqf (charitable foundations). They ran almost all schools and charitable institutions. Their views 49

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

shaped those of the bazaari merchants. Mujtahids—prominent religious teachers originally appointed by the Safavid dynasty—interpreted the Sunna and shaped the law. The state existed mostly on paper. It lacked a bureaucracy and an army, both of which were under the control of local and tribal forces. Its writ did not extend beyond the major cities. Successive shahs took little interest in public affairs. Military defeat by Russia, or demands for economic concessions by Britain, occasionally brought about defensive efforts: the creation of a modern army or the founding of some modern factories, banks, or means of communication. These efforts were stopped in almost all cases because of the opposition of the ulama and the bazaar. Penetration by Russia and Britain proved simple. Russia had seized Iran's Caucasian provinces by 1830 and had imposed capitulatory obligations on Iran with respect to trade and special consular rights. Britain obtained similar concessions in the southern part of Iran. As a result, Iran lost sovereignty over tariff rates and the actions of foreign businessmen. Prime Minister Mirza Hosein Khan encouraged concessions to foreign investors in the hope of stimulating the growth of domestic industry and science, but he was forced from office. By the end of the century native artisan industry and its bazaari allies felt challenged in the face of foreign imports, mostly in the luxury trades. Iran came to depend on Britain as its market for primary commodities. The discovery of oil in 1908 was to change Iran's marginality forever as well as destroy its traditional society. The Origins of Iranian Nationalism Iranians date the origin of their nationalism to 1891, the year of the riots that greeted their Shah's granting a Briton a monopoly on the sale of tobacco. This event marked the first time a mass popular movement arose in opposition to what was perceived as a betrayal of the national patrimony. This movement was spearheaded by an odd alliance of forces: ulama preaching against the Shah's alleged concessions to modernity, bazaaris protesting the loss of business to infidels, and a small group of secularist intellectuals seeking redress from royal absolutism. The riots were set off by a fatwa (decree) issued by the mujtahid Mirza Hasan Shirazi. This event triggered a coalition-forming process that was to recur several times in Iran before nationalism was seized from the integralists by the restorative syncretists in 1979. The incongruous and purely instrumental alliances that formed in between usually included Westernizedliberal as well as ambivalent-Islamic intellectuals, antimodernist ulama, and bazaari merchants. 5o

Iran and Egypt

In 1906, in the face of additional, though fragmentary, governmental attempts at modernization and more demands by Russia, a full-scale revolution broke out, which succeeded in foisting a constitution on the Qajar shahs. It was led by the same incongruous alliance. The secularist intellectuals were mobilized by prior acts of educational and legal modernization and had organized themselves in several secret societies. They demanded a European-style constitutional monarchy, civil liberties, and a reduction in clerical influence. The ulama, though not explicitly calling for liberal institutions, wanted a constitution to restrain a monarch they distrusted because his reforms threatened their spiritual and economic power. Religious arguments derived from Usulil jurisprudence were used to confound the traditionalists' claims that constitutions are un-Islamic because they provide equality for nonbelievers and women and, moreover, freedom to advocate heretical ideas.2 Reformist syncretists spoke of the union of ulama with the people, the need for science and industry, and the need to fight for the independence of Iran. Bazaari merchants clamored for a constitution because they saw it as protection against disorder and the Shah's propensity to do business with the imperialists. After rioting, attempts by the Shah to use the military to repress the movement, funeral processions that turned into more protests and riots, and mass religious retreats to sanctuaries, the Shah consented to the establishment of an elected legislature (Majlis). By 1907, however, civil war had broken out as the Shah, with Russian support, sought to crush the constitutionalists who had allied themselves with the Bakhtiari tribe. Whenever and wherever the Shah triumphed, he killed or exiled the constitutionalists. Though the Majlis met intermittently before the advent of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, Iran's nascent nation-building process came to a halt. Central power declined in the face of local rule by Russian and British occupation forces and because of the reassertion of tribal and provincial power. In the Gulf region, the British-owned oil concession began to produce massively to fuel the Royal Navy, a fact that would trigger a new imperialist confrontation after 1918 and rekindle the Iranian nationalist movement. See Chapter 1, n. 30. Shirazi in 1891, as well as one of the most famous reformist Islamic scholars associated with early Iranian nationalism, Muhammad Tabataba'i, was probably under the influence of Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, considered by contemporary Arab nationalists an early restorativesyncretist prophet. So were several important nineteenth-century Egyptian reformers. There is reason to doubt this ideological attribution. al-Afghani preached pan-Islamic renewal focused on the Ottoman empire as the leader. Far from seeking to restore Islam uncorrupted by modernity, he advocated the wholesale adoption of Western institutions and techniques in order to defeat Western imperialism. Moreover, he was not interested in a nationalism focused on a national territory, such as Egypt's or Iran's. See Nikki R. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). 1

2

51

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

The constitution of 1906 blended liberal and syncretist ideas. It was based on a restricted suffrage; at first it favored the merchant and artisan guilds as the primary constituency; they elected 41 percent of members of the legislature, whereas the ulama accounted for 20 percent. Later, a still more restrictive suffrage favored the rich and the landlords at a time when the legislature was dominated by the mujtahids Sayyid Abdollah Behbehani and Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i, both famous reformist syncretists. The document established a constitutional monarchy with full civil liberties for Muslim and non-Muslim alike. It gave the Majlis the power to approve laws and treaties as well as foreign loans. But the ulama exercised supreme power: all legislation had to be approved by a committee of mujtahids to ensure its conformity with Shari'a. The Failure of Liberal and Syncretist Nationalisms Religion occupied center stage in these events. Until the turn of the present century intellectuals in the Muslim world were members of a loosely defined class of men who wore the turban as a sign of their learned status. Islam enforces the belief in the Quran as the source of all knowledge men need to know. Learned men were by definition men learned in religious sciences. Theology, jurisprudence, political philosophy, metaphysics, mysticism, Arabic language and grammar, history, among other disciplines, were all viewed as components of ilm, or knowledge of the divine. In fact, in Islamic centers of learning no attempt was made to distinguish the sacred from profane knowledge.3 It is hardly surprising, then, that the nationalist ulama used core Shi'ite symbols in their sermons and appeals to limit the Shah's powers and expel the Europeans. Resistance to the Shah and to his Russian helpers was likened to the heroism of Huseyn, the Third Imam, who was martyred in his fight against the Umayyad Caliph. But how could the ulama justify their alliance with the liberal-secularist secret societies, which even enjoyed the membership of some clerics? The nationalist ulama were determined to transcend the traditional political quietism of the Shi'ite faith because they feared that apathy spelled the demise of Islamic culture in Iran. But they disagreed among themselves then (and now) about the nature and desirability of constitutional government, pitting reformist against traditional syncretists. The reformists, led by Tabataba'i, were fully aware of the enormous differences between a secular constitution and Shari'a. Yet they still 3 Mangol Bayat, "Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhullah Musawi Khumayni and Wilayat-i Faqih," in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, eds., Expectations of the Millennium (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 343. 52

Iran and Egypt

supported secular rule limited by constitutional constraints because they regarded it as a lesser evil than absolutist impious rule by the Shah. Even though they believed that the only legitimate government was the rule of God as mediated by the returned Twelfth Imam, they conceded that some kind of government was needed in the interim to meet people's needs. Hence their aim was to limit the illegitimacy of all secular government by means of the constitution. In any event, the fact that the constitution retained Shi'ite beliefs and institutions as the state religion went some way toward making this reconciliation theologically bearable.4 The failure of the first constitutional experiment was in large measure due to the fact that the reformist-syncretist beliefs were always in competition with rival liberal and Islamic values, with the Shah's and the landlords' power, and were confounded by the policies of Russia and Britain. Traditional syncretists, led by Shaykh Fadl Allah Nuri, disputed the need for liberal institutions and wanted a pious nation led by the ulama allied with the Shah. The liberal nationalists were always a small minority, but they had the support until 192o of many other urban professionals, previously socially mobilized by the Shah's on-and-off efforts at creating a bureaucracy and modern professions. These supporters, however, were more interested in internal stability and freedom from repression than in democratic values and institutions. So, of course, were the more traditional bazaaris. Liberals experienced hard times after 1911. They had considered Britain their model and ally, Russia their enemy. Britain's lack of interest in them and its alliance with Russia disillusioned the liberals. But the liberals had been clear in stressing an Iranian territorial focus for their attempts at nation-building, whereas their clerical allies kept wavering between an Iranian and a pan-Islamic identity. The liberals thought in terms of a continuous historical Iranian culture going back to 500 B.c. The ulama could imagine only an Islamic Iran, some only the Iran of the last four hundred years, the Iran in which Twelver Shi'ism was supreme. 4 See Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). Some controversy continues to exist about the character of the odd alliance. Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i allowed that in 1906 the reformist ulama really did not understand what a constitution was and accepted the word of their secularist allies. Moreover, the Persian term used for constitutional government (mashruta) was ambiguous in Meaning. Once the ambiguity was cleared up, some of the ulama left the alliance. In addition, there never has been a consensual Shi'ite doctrine on the nature of secular government. There is disagreement about whether or not the Twelfth Imam will use a state to establish the rule of God. Some make avenging the death of Imam Huseyn, not government, the main task of the returning Imam. Some interpret the faith as quietistic and otherworldly, others as a revolutionary creed for ushering in the millennium now, or soon. The eschatological role of the Third Imam is particularly useful for contemporaries who hold to the revolutionary interpretation, because his martyrdom in defense of a quasi-political cause sets him apart from most of the other imams.

53

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS BUILDING NATION AND STATE AT THE SAME TIME By 1920 there were the rudiments of an Iranian state in the form of a weak legislature and an impotent monarch, a few professional schools that trained civil servants, and an army trained by the Russians (known as Persian Cossacks) and controlled by them until 1917. (The new Soviet Union relinquished the czarist powers, claims, and rights in Iran.) A Cossack officer, Reza Khan Pahlavi, led a successful mutiny in 1921 and made himself dictator of this fledgling state, though its south was still controlled by Britain. Its sense of nationhood was equally rudimentary. National consciousness was confined to the literate professional and merchant classes, as well as to some of the clergy; the literacy rate hovered around io percent. Social mobilization was very slow. Twenty percent of the population was made up nomadic tribes. By the early 195os Persian was the language of only 43 percent; 27 percent spoke several Turkic languages, and the remaining 3o percent were divided among ten other groups, of whom the Kurds were the largest. Still, the literate followers of the Shi'ite faith shared a cultural tradition and a historical memory of past glories that were experienced within the territory called Iran, including an important poetic and artistic tradition to which later generations remained attached. This proved to be enough to fashion the core of a secular sense of nationhood. It did not, however, prove sufficient to satisfy the ambivalent yearnings of religious nationalists who came to reject dependence on the West but—unlike the secularists—not their native religious culture. Pahlavi Secular Nation- and State-Building Enraged by Britain and Russia, most nationally conscious Iranians supported the Germans and Turks during World War I, prompting a tightening of the imperial powers' control of the country. The war caused a great deal of economic suffering in urban areas, leading to the beginnings of mass politics in the form of worker dissatisfaction and trade union movements. Strikes made their appearance in 1918. Liberal and socialist organizations arose in Azerbaijan and the Caspian provinces; they demanded a stronger anti-imperialistic national government in place of the helpless monarchy in Tehran. Britain sought to prop up the monarchy with subsidies while seeking to compel the Shah to ratify a treaty that was seen as establishing a formal British protectorate over the entire country. Popular resistance to the treaty, like the events between 1891 and 1911, accelerated social and political mobilization. But this time the 54

Iran and Egypt

number of mobilized-unassimilated was much larger than in the fight over the tobacco monopoly and the foreign loans. The democratic and socialist movements in the north grew in power; the Iranian Communist Party was founded in 192o. Civil war broke out again, and Reza Khan profited from it by seizing the government in Tehran (possibly with British help). In 1925 he deposed the last Qajar ruler and made himself the successor under the title Reza Shah Pahlavi. He ruled Iran with an iron hand until Britain deposed him in 1941 for siding with Nazi Germany. In the meantime, however, he had built a true state and stimulated the beginnings of a mass-based integral nationalism. Reza had come to power with the strong support of civilian groups opposed to the treaty with Britain (liberals, socialists, and communists) or committed to stability (landowners, merchants, and ulama). Reza Shah admired and emulated Kemal Ataturk, though he failed to push Iran as far toward secular nation-statehood as did his neighbor. At first, he merely increased the strength of the modern army, which he used to crush the nomadic tribes and to force them to settle on land set aside for them. Similarly, he wiped out the urban centers that served as a base for left-wing power. Tax collection was effectively centralized, the financial system was put in order, and the treaty with Britain was not ratified. Reza Shah revealed his full intentions only after he assumed the throne. Having first posed as a friend of Islam and the ulama, he now turned on both. Organizations of the ulama were put under state control, and after the introduction of conscription, mullahs were drafted into the army. Seminaries were supervised by the state and mullahs licensed by it. The state encroached on the Shari'a and the clerical judges who administered it through the creation of modern civil and criminal codes. This, of course, also led to the evolution of a modern legal profession. The Shah sought to create a national system of public schools, which then competed with schools run by the clergy. Although Quranic education was included in the curriculum, it was subordinated to secular subjects. The veiling of women was outlawed. Reza went out of his way to downgrade Islamic themes as symbols of nationhood, substituting Zoroastrian ones instead. His news media stressed that "the Arabs had humiliated Iran in the seventh century and compelled or tricked Iranians into accepting a new religion."5 These measures, often very unpopular, were administered unevenly in various parts of the country; there was always a huge gulf between intent 5

Richard W. Cottam, Nationalism in Iran (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,

1 979), p.

148.

55

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

and execution. Repression, though common, did not come close to extirpating Islam. The use of religious robes and turbans was restricted in 1928. A year later public self-flagellation and plays reenacting the martyrdom of the early imams were outlawed. Yet the ulama continued to dominate the socially unmobilized faithful as before.

Nationalism without Islam While the ulama were thus alienated, the new middle and professional classes were not. Reza Shah despised the old ruling groups; he wanted to force the country into developing a social structure resembling the West's. He provided the institutions of upward mobility for ambitious Iranians who wanted to become lawyers, teachers, engineers, and businessmen. The fact that he preferred integral means to liberal ones bothered only the few intellectuals who equated nationalism with democracy. He gave the middle class the first national communications network, a respectable officer corps, and civil service. The public school system was expanded sixfold and a system of universities created. In short, the newly mobilized found status security right away. After 1925 Muslims no longer received any preferences from the state. Patriotism was stressed among boy and girl scouts, conscripts and teachers. The Persian language was glorified. The focus of patriotism was the Iranian state in its full historical glory before being tainted by Islam. This theme is particularly sharply etched in the cult of the poet Firdausi, a famous tenth-century writer who collected Iran's pre-Islamic history and legends in his epic Book of Kings. In the words of a contemporary of these events, "He inspires in the heart of Persians patriotism, love of their race, energy and courage . . . his verses also strive to reform their character." Another wrote: "Can you understand what our music and poetry means to us? Firdausi is not a poet long dead. He lives. He is part of our life, his couplets tell us to be great Persians again, to cultivate the best ideas of Zoroaster, to cease to submit to Russia and England, to know and live in our own country." With the dispatch of Reza Shah into exile, Britain once more made itself the chief target for the mobilization of nationalist resentment. With the growing importance of Iran's oil to the British economy, the newly emerged middle classes as well as the traditional bazaaris were aroused into demanding control over their chief national resource: petroleum. These events set the scene for the revival of liberal nationalism after the end of World War II. This revival would expose the shallow roots of that creed and its continuing feud with the proto-integralism of the Shah and the syncretism of the ulama. 56

Iran and Egypt Oil Nationalization and the National Front Anti-imperialist nationalism of all hues, not merely the revived liberalism of some modern professionals and merchants, gripped the increasingly mobilized public after 1945. Reza Shah had abdicated in favor of his son, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi. He, in turn, allowed the return of parliamentary government under the old constitution. The issue that gripped the Majlis was the prevention of Soviet hegemony in the north and wresting control over oil from its British concessionaire in the south. Previous social mobilization had resulted in the strengthening of the Tudeh (Communist) Party, perceived as an integralist nationalist threat by the liberals and the syncretists and also as the local ally of Soviet imperialism. In this setting, Muhammad Mossadeq, a former minister of Reza Shah's and now a charismatic parliamentarian, organized a new party, the National Front. Its mission was to reaffirm the national sovereignty of Iran and to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The National Front was strong in all urban centers but weak among the peasantry and in some provinces. For a few years, it represented the bazaaris and artisans and the new middle classes, the reformist-syncretist ulama, and the social democratic intellectuals. Its ideology was uncompromisingly liberal even though many in its constituency did not share this creed. It held together only until 1951, when it began to splinter because its members quarreled over rival visions of the future of Iran. Mossadeq held out for total and uncompromisable oil nationalization and eventually lost. He was overthrown in 1953 and the autocratic rule of the Shah was restored, as a result of a coup orchestrated by the United States and Britain though executed by the monarchist faction in Iran.° Though at first allied with the National Front, the leader of the radical clerical faction, Ayatollah Kashani, articulated an Islamic nationalism that sought to limit the secular emphasis of the Front by getting rid of Reza Shah's Westernizing reforms. Kashani also cooperated at times with two terrorist organizations of restorative-syncretist nationalists who Almost all the twenty founding notables of the National Front had higher educational experience, eleven of them in the West. All but two ulama were members of the modern liberal professions. Fourteen sprang from urban middle-class backgrounds, six from the landed upper class. All but one were of Persian ethnic stock. Of a sample of 2,300 Tudeh members, 55 percent came from the salaried middle class (36 percent of them students, 3o percent civil servants), 38 percent from the working class, and 7 percent from the traditional middle class. Ervand Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 254-55, 330-31. The National Front maintained ties with reformist-syncretists. Mossadeq worked for the enfranchisement of women in 1952 but gave up to maintain his alliance with some ulama. A successor movement, the Liberation Movement of Iran, was led by the "pious engineer," Mehdi Bazargan. The LMI sought to reconcile constitutionalism with the Quran while fighting Marxism and Western influence.

57

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

wanted to save Iran from modernity. While some of the reformistsyncretist clergy and bazaaris remained loyal to the National Front, many of the clergy and their followers abandoned Mossadeq when the Communists, Kashani's fundamentalists, and the monarchists united to support the restoration of the Shah and to accept a compromise in the oil nationalization crisis. Mossadeq's fall betokened the end of liberal nationalism in Iran. Monarchists, mostly large landowners, feared Marxist integralism and the liberalism of the modern middle class, though they were by no means opposed to all things Western. Moreover, they gladly allied themselves with the United States and Britain. Communist integralists strongly favored revolutionary action to advance modernization. Islamic restorative syncretists, despising the Shah, preached revolutionary action to stop modernity in its tracks. Their vision of the nation-state was an Iran restored to a pious Islamic society, albeit a socially mobilized and united one. How could liberalism function as a rationalizer in this vortex?7 THE FAILURE OF PAHLAVI INTEGRALISM Oil Wealth Finances Breakneck Modernization Muhammad Reza Shah continued and intensified the modernization policies begun by his father. He also deepened his father's secular ideas concerning Iranian nationalism. He was able to do so more effectively because he captured for Iran, soon after 1953, all the revenue generated by the now-nationalized oil enterprises and because his country became the chosen instrument of U.S. anti-Soviet policies in the Middle East. At the time of his demise in 1979 his means had become totally repressive and his conception of the Iranian nation more and more integralist. The state's money and policies build a new society. Oil revenues increased from $34 million in 1953 to $20 billion in 1977. During these years the number of university students increased from 14,500 to 154,000, primary school enrollment from 870,000 to 5 million. Increases in the means of communication and of manufacturing are shown in tables 2-1 and 2-2. The ratio of gross investment to GDP stood at 34 in 1976, though it fell to 20 in 1979; by 1977 income per capita stood at $2,200, though income inequalities were enormous. The modern middle class 7 The names of Iranian newspapers in these years give an indication of the heat of nationalist passions: Hope, Freedom, Unity of the Nation, Justice, Roar, Fatherland, Voice of the Fatherland, Dawn of Truth, Language of the Nation.

58

Iran and Egypt Table z- I. Iran: Indicators of modernization

Population (millions)' GDP (million $) b

1930

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

12.5

19.3

22.8

30.4

38

53.3 (1988)

4,120

10,914

157,63o

110,258

1,930

2,160

2 ,490

10.4 (1971 ) 3.6 (1971) 2 4.1 (1 971 ) 52 (1965)

15.9 (1981) 5.4 (1981) 11.7 (1981)

19.6 (1988) 6.o (1988) 14.2 (1988)

58 (1981)

67.5 (1991)

565

883

GDP per capita ($) b Budget shares ( %)' Education Health Defense

6.2

4.2 (1 940)

41.6

15.6 (1940)

Life expectancy at birth (years) b

50

Steel production (1,000 metric tons) Railways (km) d

25o

3,18o

3,645 (1965)

NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained.

Julian Bharier, Economic Development in Iran, 1 900-1 970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 27, 65-66. b World Bank, World Development Report for 1978, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1993. United Nations, Statistical Yearbook for 1961, 1969, 1971, 1982, 1985, 1992. d Charles Issawi, The Economic History of Iran, 1800-1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), pp. 375, 378, 381.

grew from 324,000 persons to 630,000, or 6 percent of the labor force. The urban working class grew from 300,000 to 1.7 million, or 16 percent of the labor force, the result of an unprecedented migration to the cities from the villages.8 The Shah and his advisers, however, failed to learn that economic modernization and social realignment of this magnitude call for changes in governance as well. Traditional practices of overstaffing, murky divisions of labor, appointment and promotion by patronage, poor salaries, failure to delegate, and lack of professionalization (though not of skills) continued to characterize the swollen state bureaucracy. The courts, far from being independent, remained creatures of the Ministry of Justice. The 8 Statistics come from Hamid Zangeneh, ed., Islam, Iran, and World Stability (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), pp. 206, 209; Misagh Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution (New Brunswick, Nj.: Rutgers University Press, 1989). Income inequality was reported to be higher in Iran in 197o than in any other country in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Abrahamian said that for most of the working class that "had been forced out of the villages into the new shanty towns, the oil boom did not end poverty; it merely modernized it." Iran between Two Revolutions, p. 448.

59

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS Table 2-2. Iran: Indicators of social mobilization 1960

1970

1980

1990

Illiterates (% of

85

50 (1971)

50

46

Pop•)a Population not in agriculture (%)b

46

54

6o (1976)

33

43

50

54 (1988)

Newspapers (per 1,000 pop.)a

152

24 (1971)

25

20 (1991)

Television sets (per 1,000 pop.) a

2

9 (1965)

51

63 (1991)

Radios (per 1,000 pop.)a

45

93 (1965)

163

232 (1991)

Students enrolled in secondary schools (% of age group) a

12

27

40 (1981)

57 (1991)

1930

Population not in rural areas (%)`

21

1950

28

NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained. a United Nations, Statistical Yearbook for 1961, 1969, 1971, 1982, 1985, 1992. b World Bank, World Development Report for 1978, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1993. Bharier, Economic Development in Iran, 1900-1970, pp. 27, 65-66.

armed forces remained totally autonomous from society and the bureaucracy, reporting directly to the Shah. The Shah did carry out a substantial land reform, the "white revolution." It eliminated the large absentee landlords who had owned more than half the land. Even though it broke up many estates and distributed the land to some peasant families, large mechanized farms were exempted from the reform and agribusiness devoted to export agriculture reaped the largest benefits. Little state support was given to the new peasant proprietors. The reform was implemented by means of coercion. It forced many peasants to migrate to the cities and made others into landless laborers who earned high wages but lacked secure status.9 9 After the 1979 revolution peasants seized another 2.5 million hectares of land. The Majlis passed a bill limiting the size of individual holdings further, but it was blocked by the (Islamic) Council of Guardians, suggesting that large waqf holdings remain in place. No effort was made to reclaim the seized lands for their former owners. Though the legal status of land reform remains ambiguous, there is no doubt that inequality among peasants has been greatly reduced.

6o

Iran and Egypt Investment in heavy industry was not centrally planned or coordinated. Much technology quite inappropriate to Iran's stage of development was imported. Training programs were neglected, and corruption was allpervasive. In general, the winners in the modernization process were the royal family, large-scale industrialists and financiers, and the employees of multinational firms. The losers were more numerous: bazaari merchants, artisans, landless peasants, and the urban underemployed. The state systematically prevented political participation. Most decisions, important and trivial, were made directly by the Shah and his immediate entourage. A rubber-stamp legislature continued to exist. Elections were a farce. The Shah approved all candidates for election; widespread electoral fraud was normal in the rural districts; the police and army intimidated voters. As political unrest increased, a secret political police apparatus, the SAVAK, was built up and grew more ruthless in its repressive practices. Autonomous labor unions were prohibited, as were strikes. The state paid gangs of urban toughs to "organize" unions that remained under police control. Western-style legislation to provide welfare benefits to workers remained unimplemented. The SAVAK saw to it that no professional organizations not run by the state were formed. Interest groups were not allowed to function. Various political parties were no more than cliques of supporters of the Shah and their officially designated "opponents." During the 197os almost every group turned against the system. The clergy were the first to be totally alienated. The Shah, though committed to secularism, was slow to attack the ulama. His modernization measures tiptoed around institutions dear to the clergy until 1959. He allied himself with Ayatollah Burujirdi, thus sidestepping the radical Islamists led by Ayatollah Kashani. It was the land reform that turned the ulama against the Shah because he seized large tracts of land assigned to waqf from ulama control for distribution to peasants. Increasingly, the state encroached on Islamic educational institutions as well. The Shah's educational policies and social modernization implied more equality for women, another source of antagonism for the ulama. Middle-class women benefited greatly from government policies, when judged in terms of Western values; they lived impiously in the eyes of the faithful. In 1963 the Shah ruthlessly repressed student demonstrations. This did little to endear him to the modern middle class, which from then on turned against him. For some in the middle classes, it was a classical instance of the newly mobilized being denied assimilation into the structures of public decision making. For the traditional middle class and the clergy, however, it was a case of reactive dissatisfaction, of opposition to 61

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

the social mobilization being carried out, not anger at being excluded from possible participatory benefits. Those who had been mobilized but not assimilated by the regime responded in various ways. Many remained liberal nationalists but demanded democratic reforms. Others turned to Marxism and worked for an integralist regime by way of acts of terrorism, revolutionary propaganda, and guerrilla warfare. Of 341 guerrillas killed in the 197os, over half had been university students. Most, however, turned back to Islam, as revealed in the enormous growth of Islamic student organizations, some of whose members were Islamic Marxists. The renaissance of Islam among the newly socially mobilized apparently had to do with the rigors of moving from rural life into the disorganization and chaos of large cities, which were unable to keep up with the population growth. In any event, the seventies also saw an enormous increase in urban mosque membership and in participation by workingclass people in mosque-affiliated activities and groups. Many women who entered the modern labor market were unwilling to abandon traditional ways of behavior. Two contrasting urban cultures developed side by side, one opposed to the regime because it was not modern enough, the other because it was too modern. Too Many Ideologies, No National Myth These contrasting responses to social mobilization found symbolic expression in six competing ideologies, each squaring off against the official doctrine propounded by the Shah as the "true" Iranian myth.'° The Shah's integralism stressed the need for a legally unrestrained father figure to lead his family into a modernity that would equal the historic splendor and glory of the Achaemenian and Sassanid dynasties. Mohammed Reza Shah presented himself as the most recent in a line of king-of-kings going back to Cyrus the Great. For good measure he also called himself Aryamehr, light of the Aryans. In 1971 he staged a son-etlumiere extravaganza in the ruins of Persepolis to celebrate the 2,5ooth anniversary of the Iranian nation-state. He attempted to disestablish Shi'ism altogether as the state religion in 196o but retreated somewhat in the light of ulama opposition. Ayatollah Khomeini, apparently slightly mollified, did not then challenge the Shah. By 1976, however, the Shah renewed the attack on Islam by claiming that the conquering Arabs had forcibly converted Zoroastrians to Islam. He also changed the calendar to strip it of Islamic content. The range of the opposition is shown in table 2-3. 10

This section is largely the work of Richard Snyder. 62

Iran and Egypt Table 2-3. Typology of opposition nationalists in Iran, 1950-198o Liberals

Integralists

Reformist syncretists

Traditional syncretists

Restorative syncretists

Muhammad Mussadeq; National Front. Advocated Western parliamentary democracy, separation of religion from state, republic, respect for human rights. Communists (Tudeh). Leninist regime, social revolution; total secularization. Ali Shariati; Mujahedin. Islam justifies social revolution, class conflict, dictatorship of proletariats; Third World antiimperialist revolution; Leninist economic regime. Islamic-revolutionary culture instead of Western culture. Mehdi Bazargan; Islamic Liberation Movement. "Progressive" Islamic economy with parliamentary democracy. Ayatollah Shariatmadari; H. Rafsanjani. Constitution of 1906 with ulama advisory role; expel Western culture. Ayatollahs Kashani and Khomeini. Return to golden age of Islam before Western corruption; direct clerical rule by Supreme Guide; remove all Western accretions except industry, military, technology.

He was, of course, opposed by secular Marxist parties—who continued to exist underground—as well as by their guerrilla groups, which sought to stage terrorist events. But the Muslim revolutionary Mujahedin, professing views similar to Ali Shariati's, were a far more effective opposition group. Sometimes called the Frantz Fanon of Iran, "Shariati produced exactly what the young intelligentsia craved: a radical layman's religion that disassociated itself from the traditional clergy and associated itself with the secular trinity of social revolution, technological innovation, and cultural-self-assertion."" The substantive content of his message was al" Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, p. 473. The economics of the creed is largely the work of Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and of ex-president Bani Sadr. It is almost straight Marxist-Leninist, using the few references to economic organization in the Sunna to justify the argument against capitalism and individualism. Muhammad Jawad Mughniyah (i 961) wrote that the creed of the Imam Ali implies socialism, the creation of a new moral person, and the need for totalitarian institutions to bring this about. The First Imam foresaw the discovery of oil and the invention of television and the miracles of twentieth-century science. He wanted all this to be put in the service of a progressive Shi'ite universalism, not confined to Iran.

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

most entirely Marxist, but the symbolism and the core justification were Islamic. Despite the wide gulf between Shariati's nationalism and that of the restorative syncretists, the two were in fact closely allied in the late 197os in their radical opposition to the Shah's nationalism and to his endorsement of capitalism, while agreeing on the need to reassert a sense of Iranian cultural identity. The liberal nationalists went into decline after 1953, to reemerge briefly in 1979 as vocal opponents of the Shah. However, the integralists and syncretists who overthrew the regime were ready to persecute the liberals as agents of the West; most liberals emigrated at that time. Their allies, the Liberation Movement of Iran, briefly shared power with the followers of Khomeini. It soon became obvious that these reformist syncretists remained far too close to Western values to provide reliable supporters for the restorative syncretists who masterminded the revolution. Traditionalist members of the ulama who shied away from the creation of a consistently theocratic state also proved to be unacceptable as permanent partners in the revolution. Still, they were essential to Khomeini's success. The traditionalists' mosques, and the welfare and educational institutions associated with them, provided the organizational infrastructure for the revolution. All other institutions had been penetrated by the Shah's secret police. Khomeini lived in exile in Iraq and in France. The network of mosques under the control of ulama was not in full accord with Khomeini but nevertheless became the mouthpiece for his revolutionary message. This service did not suffice to facilitate a partnership with the restorative syncretists led by Ruhollah Khomeini. They monopolized theocratic rule within two years of driving the Pahlavi dynasty from Iran by establishing the Islamic Republic. Their ideology aimed at redefining Islamic identity as a creed to unite the people against all accretions of Western thought and against all Western institutions for organizing national life. The Sunna alone was to serve as the source of this identity, albeit the Sunna as interpreted in novel ways by Khomeini. This interpretation encouraged industrialization not dominated by Western firms and tolerated state institutions that served this purpose. It also encouraged full nationalization of all natural resources and the retention of the Shah's modern military apparatus.12 Khomeini portrayed the struggle against imperialism as a reenactment of the heroism and martyrdom the followers of Ali displayed in fighting the Sunnis. 12 The restorative syncretists read and were influenced by two Sunni writers advocating similar ideas of renewal. In India, Maulana Mawdudi had written about such needs; he became a major ideological force in Pakistan. In Egypt the same arguments were published by Sayyid Qutb, the major ideologist of Sunni restorative syncretism.

64

Iran and Egypt The integralists were interested primarily in fighting global imperialism; Iran's liberation was seen as merely one battle, not the entire war. Khomeini always spoke of leading "the nation of Islam," of rejuvenating it in its struggle with the two "great satans," capitalist immorality as personified by the United States and socialism as represented by the Soviet Union. Are these ideologies truly nationalistic? We must conclude that even if neither Ali Shariati nor Ruhollah Khomeini thought primarily in terms of the character and needs of the Iranian nation-state, they were inadvertently forced to take a nationalist position. Their program sounds pan-Islamic, not nationalistic. But in order to have their way, they had to seize control of a nation, Iran. Without a base in an existing state there was no chance of universalizing the revolution they wished to lead. Hence, they and especially their followers identified with the remaking of Iran as a nation-state first and foremost, even if this was seen by some as a mere first step in a larger revolution in the entire Middle East. There can be no question that there was an Iranian nationalism, the mass sentiment of national identity, by the 197os, even though it was too fragmented to merit the label of a national myth. Rationalization is hardly possible when too many groups oppose both the state's and one another's ideas of the nation's identity. Restorative Syncretism: How Inevitable? Considering the rift between secular and religious opponents of the Shah, as well as the differing interpretations of Shi'ite doctrine among the faithful, nothing about the victory of Khomeini seems inevitable. If anything, the incompetence of the Shah's integralism is to blame for the outcome. The Shah's government was unable to learn, to analyze, to draw clear inferences. It was an equally inept chooser of new means when the old ones failed. Its choice of military repression turned out to be the wrong one as the Shah's conscript soldiers refused to fire on crowds of demonstrators who were their relatives and fellow believers.13 The revolution was made by a coalition united by a single common aim: the overthrow of the Shah. The participants differed on every other issue involving the future course of Iran. They agreed in blaming the Shah for overdependence on the United States, for his submerging of what they saw as Iran's national interest in the security interests of Washington and the financial interests of Wall Street. Many observers 13 See the detailed case in Shaul Bakhhash, "Iran," American Historical Review 96 (December 1991): 1479-96.

65

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS doubt that most of the people who demonstrated for the overthrow of the Shah were motivated by deep religious concerns, by a commitment to theocratic government. In any event, even the ulama disagreed among themselves on some fundamental points of doctrine. The followers of Ayatollah Shariatmadari and other traditional syncretists held that though pious Islam makes no distinction between the religious and the secular, faithful Muslims must interest themselves in the public weal in order to live a life governed by Shari'a. These interests, however, may be confined to making sure that the rulers are pious and that the state enforces the law. Although certainly irreconcilable with secular notions of nationalism, this view fell far short of the restorative syncretist view, as Khomeini argued that the pious state can be attained only if it is ruled by the ulama. Even though the content of the very notion of "Islamic rule" has always been contested, the Shari'a, however interpreted, could be used as a defense against Western encroachment. Not only was the revolution of 1979 a mixture of many Islamic and secular strands of thought, its Islamic component contained basic contradictions as well. Khomeini in fact continually reinterpreted the content of his own restorative syncretism, so that, by 1989, it approached the traditional strand. Yet the enormous contradictions within the restorers' position further put in doubt the inevitability of their victory. They endorsed technology, but they condemned its consequences in the form of mass-consumption products. They insisted that only Shari'a-sanctioned taxes could be levied but persisted in raising sufficient noncanonical revenue to finance the relief of poverty. They wanted Iran to be part of the international system, but their followers were to shout at all meetings, "Praise the Lord! God is great! Khomeini is great! Death to America! . . . Death to the Soviet Union and all superpowers."14 Their spirited defense against Iraq's aggression in 1981 confirmed their commitment to the idea of the nation-state. RESTORATIVE SYNCRETISM TRIUMPHANT? The Political Theory of Ruhollah Khomeini Khomeini claimed to carry out the Velayat-e Faqih, the guardianship of the supreme guide.15 Until the return of the Imam, supreme legal author14 Daniel Pipes, In the Path of God (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 16o. 15 The concept is also translated "mandate of the clergy" or "sovereignty of the jurist." Khomeini redefined it to refer to the rule of a single person and, claiming that right for himself, allowed others to call him "Imam." After he had consolidated the power of his group at the expense of other opponents of the Shah, Khomeini mostly "led from the rear," not at all in a charismatic fashion, by encouraging debate on contested policy issues.

66

Iran and Egypt

ity over the community had to be assumed by a single person standing in for the Mandi. This justification for a charismatic-theocratic government was first developed in 1829 and became part of the Akhbari attack on reformist-syncretist constitutionalists who used ijtihad to reconcile modernity with Shari'a. Khomeini's use of the same concept was innovative and revolutionary. He blamed Akhbari literalists for the disasters that had befallen Iran. His interpretation of the guardianship doctrine "attempts to break loose the nation's ties to the religio-political culture in which it has been reared, and to replace it with, not a belief system, but a radically reinterpreted, ideologized conception of the old system."1fi The traditional system tolerated, if it did not preach, accommodation with the impious state. Khomeini's interpretation of the Sunna holds that the imams always fought injustice and never condoned quietism. The constitution of the Islamic Republic names the guardian as the absolute ruler of Iran. Was Khomeini a restorative syncretist? Yes and no. He began his political career as a disciple of Ayatollah Qumi, the leader of the restorative movement in the wake of Reza Shah's abdication in 1941. That movement succeeded in reversing a great many of Reza Shah's anti-Islamic legislative measures. But Khomeini went beyond simple restoration. He insisted that restoring rule by Shari'a demanded the existence of a state, the creation of a political order. He held that the state was more important than society and that both take precedence over Islamic institutions that depend on the state. The restored Islamic state, led by the stand-in for the Mandi and by his brother mullahs, was seen as a necessary stage to bring about eventual divine rule. Among the nonrestorative theological innovations urged by Khomeini is the duty of the faithful to rebel against impious rulers. Moreover, their pious successor(s) are under obligation to relieve poverty and national dependence on foreigners. Khomeini's teaching on Islamic political and economic reform persuaded some observers to consider him a quasiintegralist egalitarian reformer. He interpreted the figure of the Imam as a military-political personality, as a philosopher-king.17 Bayat, "Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhullah Musawi Khumayni," p. 355. Khomeini's theology may deliberately have sought to build bridges to Sunni Islam since the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih was also taught by Rashid Rida and Sayyid Qutb. None of them taught that the faqi had to be superhuman. Shortly before his death in 1989 Khomeini made some ambiguous pronouncements that allowed Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then speaker of the Majlis, to water down the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih so as to be less offensive to Sunnis. It is widely suspected that Khomeini did so in order to stress his regenerative message for all of Islam, thus begging the question of his nationalist credentials. For a full discussion of Khomeini's politico-theological thought, see Daniel Brumberg, "Khomeini's Legacy," in R. Scott Appleby, ed., Spokesmen for the Despised (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 16-82, especially pp. 67-71. I have also relied heavily on Nasr, Dabashi, and Nasr, Expectations of the Millennium, chaps. 13, 22. 16

1.1

67

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Khomeini was not a simple restorative syncretist, though most of his followers were. Neither was he primarily an Iranian nationalist, though, again, most of his followers were. His vision was of the "nation of Islam," in which the cultural, historic, or ethnic characteristics of the faithful are irrelevant. Impious states led by Muslim monarchs were to be destroyed; all pious Muslims, not just Twelver Shi'ites in Iran, were under obligation to rebel. He exercised this pan-Islamic claim to guide "the revolution" in his fatwa of death against Salman Rushdie. But, though "sovereignty belongs only to God" for the faithful, since the work of God perforce has to be done by a state, pious devotion to that state is indirectly transmuted into nationalism, after all. The Political Institutions of the Islamic Republic How Islamic is the constitution of the Islamic Republic? We begin with an examination of the principle of political succession. Khomeini combined church and state in his person: he was at once the spiritual and the secular ruler of Iran because the dual role of the faqih was at first anchored in the constitution. Whether he delegated any of his authority to secular or sacred governing bodies was entirely up to him, though in practice he intervened only to mediate among these institutions. On his death in 1989, his presumptive successors, Ali Khameneh'i and Hashemi Rafsanjani, declared themselves unqualified to assume the role of faqih. Many ulama argued that leadership by a single charismatic faqih was not as Islamic as the collegial leadership of councils of the learned clergy.18 Two special arbitral bodies had to be appointed before a constitutional solution was found. It downgraded the position of the faqih by deciding that the incumbant had to hold a "correct political vision" rather than possess perfect knowledge of the Shari'a. Moreover, the functions of what is now called "the leader" were divided into separate political and spiritual offices. Ali Khameneh'i, the person chosen to be leader by the revolutionary notables, lacked the learning to assume the spiritual crown. That honor was given to a succession of relatively unknown clerics. For contending judgments about Khomeini's integralist as opposed to restorative-syncretist views, see the chapters by Ahmad Ashraf in Myron Weiner and Ali Banuazizi, eds., The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994); Milton Viorst, "Changing Iran," Foreign Affairs (November—December 1995): 63-76; and Charles Andrain, Comparative Political Systems (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994). 18 Apparently, many of the ulama never accepted the Velayat-e Faqih doctrine as preached by Khomeini and preferred some kind of collective decision making short of a full-scale theocratic state. The person once thought most likely to succeed Khomeini, Ayatollah Montazeri, was sidelined because of this belief and because of his efforts to moderate the totalitarian zeal of Khomeini's followers.

68

Iran and Egypt Both leaders are removable by the political authorities. Nobody inherited the charisma of Khomeini, the first faqih. The institution is dead, and future theocratic succession is in doubt. By virtue of the constitutional amendments of 1989, the Islamic Republic has become a much less theocratic state. Under the earlier arrangement, lines of hierarchy and authority were ambiguous. Though supreme authority lay with the faqih, and not with the legislature or the cabinet, the ministries were supervised by a large number of committees of ulama. Conformity with the Shari'a of legislation passed by the Majlis was judged by a clerical Council of Guardians and an Assembly of (Islamic) Experts, who also elected the leader. The amendments abolished all supervisory clerical bodies except the Council of Guardians and the Assembly of Experts. The president of the Islamic Republic is the secular leader of the country; he is popularly elected. Legislative authority was largely lodged in the Majlis, though a new Council for the Determination of the Interest of the Regime was created to settle the large number of disputes between the legislature and the Council of Guardians. Before 1989, members of the ulama were prominent in the Majlis, the cabinet, and the administrative services; since then, they are much less visible in secular roles. The final word on the "correct" policy, however, remains with the appointed spiritual leader, the Supreme Guide, who outranks the president. After 1979 the activities of all political parties were repressed. A single successor, the Islamic Republican Party, assumed control over all electoral activity. But Khomeini disbanded it as unnecessary in 1987, after almost all political opposition had been wiped out by execution, exile, or incarceration. Even if elections seem to be relatively free of coercion, conformity with official policy by candidates is ensured because the Islamic councils screen aspirants to public office, a process that is increasingly used to advance as well as handicap restorative-syncretist activists. Moreover, the all-important judicial bodies remain entirely under clerical control. Ambiguity over the kind and amount of Islam in public life hinders the evolution of a clear Islamic-Iranian civil religion. Goaded by the global trend toward political democracy, Iran's leaders now speak of their country as a "functional democracy" despite the heavily authoritarian nature of its institutions. Though in disagreement over what counts as "Islamic" and what institutions ought to be shunned as Western and imperialistic, leaders insist that Iran is no longer a totalitarian country. Muslims, both Shi'ite and Sunni, are equal; all Islamic schools of jurisprudence are entitled to equal respect. But members of other faiths are sometimes victims of discrimination and even repression. Members of non-Persian groups—Kurds, Azerbaijani, Turkomans, Baluchi, Arabs69

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

are not subject to discrimination merely because of their ethnic identity; Arabs, in fact, remained loyal to Iran in the Gulf War even though ardently courted by Saddam Hussein. The major non-Persian-speaking groups have access to mass media in their own languages. Yet the authorities have used proficiency in Twelver Shi'ism theological niceties to discriminate against candidates for public office whom they wished to exclude. Limited religious tolerance within Islam is contradicted by intolerance in education. After 1979 forty thousand teachers were purged from the public schools. New Islamic texts took the place of the secular school materials used under the Shah. The learning of Arabic, the sacred language, was encouraged. Ulama monitor all schools to make sure correct doctrine is taught. Admission to universities is partly determined by the mastery of Islamic subjects, as well as by military service. Individual freedom remains very restricted. There are no autonomous interest groups. No corporatist ties with labor and the peasantry have been established.'9 Vigilante groups—called basijis—arrest suspected dissidents and hand them over to Islamic prosecutors for torture and execution. Self-appointed local vice squads intimidate people, especially women, to follow Islamic rules of daily life. Revolutionary Guards have been made into an Islamic army competing with the regular armed forces. Radio and television are used for state propaganda, not as a forum for debate. Dissident media, though occasionally tolerated, are repressed when seen as too active. Yet there is a thriving film industry and continued lively interest in Western television programs. Iran's filmmakers and actors have petitioned the government for a relaxation of censorship. Under the rule of President Muhammed Khatami, the pressure for more individual freedom has mushroomed. In principle, the constitution guarantees the customary civil and political rights; in practice, these are abrogated by administrative and screening agencies that insist on an Islamic interpretation of such rights— though no single and unique interpretation has found acceptance. The rigorous adherence to constitutional principle shown on the occasion of the impeachment of the republic's first president, Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr, an intellectual considered insufficiently Islamic by the restorative syncretists, did not prevent an outright purge. In 1997 President Rafsanjani was succeeded by Muhammed Khatami, who had served as minister of culture and guidance but had been dis" The ambivalent attitude toward the Shari'a stands revealed in the case of the labor law. In 1979 the government abrogated the old law guaranteeing labor certain minimal social benefits and sought to draft a new labor law consistent with the Shari'a. After a decade of disputation and conflict between Majlis and the Council of Guardians the effort failed and something like the original (Western-inspired) law was reinstated. 70

Iran and Egypt missed by Rafsanjani in 1993 for entertaining excessively "liberal" opinions. Although opposed by the restorative establishment, Khatami was chosen in an entirely free and honest election; go percent of the electorate participated. Khatami's share of the vote was 69 percent; women and young people favored him overwhelmingly. Even though parties were not allowed to form, public opinion tended to divide along the lines of more or less strict Islamic rule, pitting the Coalition of the Imam's line against the Servants of Construction. Public Policy: How Islamic? Economic policy demonstrates most strikingly the difficulties encountered by the restorer of the Shari'a who seeks also to modernize his nation. Apart from explicitly protecting private property, the Sunna contains few direct references to the economy. It lauds the search for justice and enjoins the relief of the poor. As might be expected, however, just what is meant by "justice" has always remained controversial. Theologians who wished to interpret the Sunna so as to legitimate redistributive, if not socialist, measures relied on the doctrine that a measure "in the best interest of the community" (maslahat) could override any "primary" Shari'a rule, such as the sanctity of private property. Antisocialist theologians denied that primary injunctions could be thus shouldered aside. The controversy paralyzed much of economic policy making in the 198os because the socialist interpretation of the Majlis was negated by the conservative stand of the Council of Guardians. Khomeini himself, however, had offered interpretations at odds with Shari'a. He authorized the levying of modern taxes additional to those sanctioned by the Quran. Even so, Iranians continued to practice tax evasion on a massive scale. He allowed policies aiming at Iranian economic self-reliance no different in rhetoric and content from the antidependency postures of Mexico and Peru in the 197os, though no thoroughgoing land reform was enacted because of the controversy over private property. Iranian banks continue to charge interest despite the Quranic prohibition against it. A 1988 fatwa allowed the practice of birth control! The socialist conception of Islamic justice won out in the massive nationalizations of banks, insurance companies, trucking, heavy industry, irrigation works, and pharmaceuticals carried out after 1979. The state dominated the economy; the civil service became the single largest employer (a favorite profession for young ulama), followed by the army and the Revolutionary Guards, each of which controlled aspects of industry, too. The ulama were the fourth largest economic force because of their control of a pious trust called Mustazafin that runs all nationalized prop71

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

erties.2° In the 199os the socialist-statist position is represented by one "party," the Association of Militant Clergy; their opponents became known after 1996 as the Servants of Iran's Construction; the two are now the only organized contenders in elections to the Majlis. The Militant Clergy mostly professed restorative syncretism; their opponents tend to favor the traditional or even reformist strands. When Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani became president, free market— oriented technocrats began to carry the day. The state-run enterprises had incurred huge losses, inflation was rife, the housing supply very inadequate, wages stagnant, and unemployment high. Oil revenues fell during the 198os war with Iraq. Changes confirmed the non-Islamic aspects of economic life as well as the restoration of the free market. The Five Year Plan (1991-96) called for $20 billion in foreign investment and the removal of state regulation of the economy. All these steps are opposed by the adherents of the earlier policy. However, Iran is making visible efforts to reintegrate trade and investment practices into the global economy's rules, as defined by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Administrative cohesion has failed to improve. While Khomeini was alive, the administrative practices of the state were so chaotic as to put the continuing primacy of the government into doubt. A parallel Islamic state competed with secular authorities. Different cliques of clerics sought to wrest control over government departments from different groups of civil servants. Contradictory decisions, or no decisions, were the result of unresolved differences dividing integralists and traditional and restorative syncretists among the followers of Khomeini. Buck-passing was the order of the day as bureaucrats sought to avoid making decisions and clerics disagreed in their interpretations of the law. The Revolutionary Guards developed into a rival of the regular armed forces; no civilian politician was able to control them, and they tended to make their own foreign and defense policies. Alongside each traditional bureaucratic unit a new Islamic unit developed, as in some other countries in which integral nationalism triumphed. Military life has probably contributed to the integration of the nation. Iranian soldiers fought courageously, if not recklessly, during the long war with Iraq. They suffered enormous casualties and yet were willing to fight 2° Controversy continues about the distributional effects of the nonmarket policies of the Islamic Republic. Possibly, national income and individual welfare did not decline because government reduced dependence on oil exports, cut back on expensive military imports, and stopped high-technology construction projects. Many soldiers serving in the war against Iraq continued to draw their civilian pay. Voluntary taxes paid by major religious foundations eased the burden of the war. Income distribution in rural areas became more egalitarian; in urban areas the republic possibly reversed the growing inequality of income that occurred during the t97os.

72

Iran and Egypt on with arms inferior to those of the enemy. Encouraged by the Shi'ite cult of martyrdom in serving God, they gave their lives freely. The state has recognized their service in the tribute to martyrdom displayed in Tehran's military cemetery. Non-Persian Iranians also fought in the war and, when killed in action, were honored as were Muslim victims. Nevertheless, as the war wore on, draft dodging became widespread. Vigilantes were sent out to find and seize the laggards who were unable to bribe their way out of serving. Desertions became common enough to persuade the Majlis to pass an amnesty law for deserters. Iran's foreign policy turned clearly nationalist but continues to waver between traditional and restorative syncretism. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic proclaims the desirability of a single Muslim nation and the need to bring it about by means of revolutions aided by Iran. Khameneh'i continued to endorse this aim after Khomeini's death. When Rafsanjani was asked about exporting revolutions, he replied, "Iran is the mother of Islamic nations."21 But policy diverged from rhetoric very early. Khomeini abandoned pan-Islamic views after the war with Iraq erupted and began to preach Iranian patriotic themes instead. By the end of the 198os pre-Islamic themes and symbols had been reintroduced into the school curriculum. Khomeini began to practice "Khomeinism in one country." By ending the war with Iraq on terms unfavorable to Iran, he put the interests of the Iranian nation-state ahead of pan-Islamic ideals, as did his successors by opposing Afghanistan's Taliban and later reconciling with Iraq. When the United Nations launched its enforcement action against Iraq, some clerical leaders wanted to come to the aid of Saddam Hussein in the name of revolutionary Islamic solidarity, condemning Saudi Arabia for desecrating the grave of the Prophet by opening the country to Western military forces. They put anti-imperialism ahead of Islamic purity. But Rafsanjani declared neutrality and failed to come to the assistance of Shi'ite rebels in Iraq. Foreign policy remains murky. Pan-Islamic forces in Iran continue to support revolutionary Islam in Lebanon, Sudan, and Egypt. Revolutionary Guards aid the government of Bosnia in violation of the Dayton Agreement. Dissident Iranians living abroad are sometimes assassinated. Rafsanjani seemed interested in attracting Western capital without reestablishing formal relations with Washington, but Khatami is even more open to foreign investment and speaks of normal relations with the United States. Both seek to acquire nuclear technology and ballistic missiles from Russia, China, and North Korea, even while they profess Iran's 21

Gary Sick, "Iran: The Adolescent Revolution," Journal of International Affairs (Summer

1995)•

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

desire to outlaw weapons of mass destruction. In ever friendlier overtures to capitalism, President Khatami reestablished diplomatic relations with the European Union countries. He courts Islamic and especially Arab governments, initially using the 1997 Tehran meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference for that purpose. At that meeting he proposed a nonmilitant foreign policy that Ali Khameneh'i promptly denounced. Tensions among Reformist-, Traditional-, and Restorative-Syncretist Nationalisms By 1900 there was a nationalist sentiment among Iranian elites, well before social mobilization got under way; it included liberal themes along with syncretist ones. Social mobilization is still incomplete, though it was certainly advancing fast by 197o. A nation-state was in the making by 195o, clearly in place by 197o. But no myth capable of rationalizing that nation-state won the day. Even today, although traditional syncretism comes close to defining the country's collective identity, there is enough articulate dissent from reformist and restorative syncretists to forbid a flat finding that rationalization is being achieved under the auspices of traditional syncretism (see table 2-4). Table 2-4. Iran: Extent of rationalization 1900

1940

1950

1970

1990

Political succession National myth in education Religious institutions Civil religion Cultural uniformity Language Income distribution Workers' organizations Farmers' organizations Payment of taxes Conscription Fighting wars Administrative cohesion Foreign policy Peaceful change Legitimacy

yes yes yes yes some N/A yes yes some no some no no no yes yes some some some yes some some some yes no yes yes yes yes yes some some some yes no no no no no no no no no no no some some N/A some no N/A some yes yes yes N/A N/A N/A yes yes no some some some no no yes some yes yes no some no no no no yes some some some

Total (%)

27

74

57

47

53

6o

Iran and Egypt Iran today is closer to being a rationalized nation-state than ever before. True, that rationalization was achieved by clerics who once professed vituperative opposition to secular values and institutions. Nevertheless, it is clear that their success is heavily dependent on major departures from the restorative-syncretist creed. The restorative syncretists have not disappeared. Led by Supreme Guide Ali Khameneh'i, they continue to hew to the total supremacy of Shari'a law and the use of totalitarian methods of rule, including torture and arbitrary "revolutionary justice." The supremacy of the ulama at all levels of government is to be retained. Statist economic policies inspired by Islamic ideas of social justice are urged. Censorship of all cultural media is lauded and still practiced fitfully. Pilgrimages to religious shrines are exploited as occasions for the assertion of a public political identity rather than of private piety. Restorative syncretists continue to show ambiguity between a nationalist and a pan-Islamic definition of Iran's collective identity. Iran's constitution is full of self-contradictory provisions and declarations on this topic. Yet the traditional syncretists have reintroduced pre-Islamic themes and symbols that were banned in the rg8os. Still, these contradictions may not be serious. Richard Cottam found that many ulama manage to profess simultaneously pan-Islamic and territorial-Iranian values without being conscious of a tension. Moreover, they usually find scriptural justifications for the reconciliation. Fearing defections from the ranks of the radical clergy, the restorative leaders sought (without full success) to "discipline" the ulama by mandating an authoritative and hierarchical structure for the clergy, a "church" in the Western sense; the traditionalists resist this measure as un-Islamic. There is enormous pressure, however, to abandon many of these policies, the extent of which is shown by Khatami's victory margin and by the massive protests mounted in 1999. Evidence of dissatisfaction with clerical rule is rife. Young people seek to evade the morals police when they can; many of them do not bother to vote because they are bored with all politics. They consider the Islamic revolution a nuisance that keeps them from enjoying Western movies, music, and fashion. Current economic policies are likely to stimulate such yearnings further. There is widespread resentment of wealth and corruption among the ulama, particularly practices that the public sees as misappropriation of charitable funds.22 22 Young people, and especially university students, are disproportionately influential in Iran because of the dramatic pro-natalist policy promoted by the government in the first decade after the revolution. Voting age is fifteen; enough of the young vote to bring reformers into office. Students admire Khatami and the modernist Islamist philosopher Soroosh as theorists of reformist change. The introduction of birth control measures in 1989 represents a conscious recognition by the clergy that alienated youth are a serious challenge to the regime.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

There has been a public outcry against torture. The arbitrary arrest of Tehran's mayor by the radical-clerical police brought forth massive demonstrations and riots in his support, endorsed by Khatami. Although President Khatami remains careful not to challenge the basic religious values of the regime, he certainly works for change in institutions that approximates a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" liberalism. Censorship has been unevenly enforced. Open debate prevails in the Majlis. The rule of law is advocated as a means to curb the police, the Revolutionary Guards, and the gangs of hoodlums organized by the restorative clergy. These developments resemble nothing so much as a trend to a tacit reformist syncretism. And, given the encouragement Khomeini offered the bureaucracy and the Majlis at the end of his life, it was he who launched Iran on the trajectory away from a restorative national identity. The protests, riots, and renewed repression that occurred in 1999 illustrate these countercurrents. First, some prominent reformers were assassinated by rogue members of the state intelligence agency, some anti-clerical magazines were closed down, and restorers sought to impeach officials loyal to Khatami, who fought back by purging the commission that screens candidates for election. Then ensued a week of rioting by Tehran University students protesting a new censorship law but not otherwise challenging the religious basis of the state. Violent repression greeted the students, followed by riots and demonstrations by supporters of the Supreme Guide. President Khatami, threatened with a coup by the Revolutionary Guards, abandoned the students and openly sided with Khameneh'i. Learning to Moderate Syncretism? Policy change in Iran, until the 1990s, was always triggered by ideological commitment, not by the practice of causal analysis. Adaptation was used at times. The war with Iraq persuaded many of the doctrinaire ulama to change tactics in order to pursue the fighting more effectively. The need for funds resulted in the relaxation of the principles of Islamic taxation, as it had many times before in the history of Islamic states. The shift to a free market economy and the desire to enter the international economic system, however, may constitute a major instance of learning. That shift implies a realization that it is not possible to meet the ideals of a Shari'a-based economy and also succeed in meeting the objectives of social justice contained in the modern Islam advocated by many ulama and by Khomeini. Moreover, that realization confirms the centrality of the nation-state as the agent of the desired transformation, not a pan-territorial or non-national alternative identity. A traditional-syncretist 76

Iran and Egypt

ideology of nationalism is able to make these compromises with secular thought; a restorative-syncretist view is not. This learning process may have been launched inadvertently by Khomeini himself.23 The faqih had evidently decided at the end of his life that it was impossible to pass on the charisma of his office to a successor. He realized, in deference to Max Weber, that his charisma could be routinized only if a new set of nonclerical institutions was encouraged in which debate could flourish. Thus he initiated the downgrading of the office of supreme guide as well as the upgrading of the powers of the Majlis, along with the new office of president of the Islamic Republic. Only in this way, apparently, did he believe that the revolution could be institutionalized. He could not be expected to foresee that these reforms, in turn, would assist the gradual abandonment of his revolution and the resumption of secularization. Is the compromise adequate to complete the rationalization of the Iranian nation-state? The logic of modernization and continuing social mobilization suggests that it is not. Rather, new tensions and new sources of dissatisfaction are likely to arise, tensions that may question the doctrine that Islam, if properly understood, contains all necessary solutions to all problems of life. If and when this occurs, reformist syncretists will vie with liberals in again seeking a national myth that will satisfy Iranians, and Islam may yet lose out altogether as the definer of the national identity. EGYPT THE BIRTH OF NATIONALISM Before 1798 no one in the country we now call Egypt thought of it as the home of a body of like-minded people arrayed against those who live outside its borders. Premodern Muslims ascribed scarcely any meaning to the fact that they happened to be living in one kingdom and not another. What did it matter that the Ghaznavids, Sa'ids, or Zayids were in power? Whereas Muslims were merely resident in a kingdom, the importance was that they were citizens of the umma. Kings, capitals and state structures had little hold over the loyalties of their subjects.24 23 This theme is fully developed by Brumberg, "Khomeini's Legacy." These innovations were actually made by Rafsanjani, who "interpreted" Khomeini's cryptic statements. 24 Pipes, In the Path of God, p. 149.

77

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Thus, the rule of a "foreign" dynasty—the Mameluks—was not seen as unnatural or undesirable any more than the dominion of their successors, the Turko-Circassian followers of Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman officer of Albanian origin who seized control of Egypt in the wake of the failed French invasion of 1798-1800. The links between ethnicity, religion, and territory in Egypt differ from the Iranian experience. In Egypt, there were only two language/religious communities: a large majority of Arabic-speakers professing Sunni Islam and a minority of Christian Copts. There was no Islamic sect enjoying the special favor of the rulers; Sunni Islam was and is much more loosely organized than Shi'ite Islam. Most of its believers reject Shi'ite millenarianism; its ulama did not claim the right to establish pious governance. But they enjoyed full legal control over all Shari'a-ruled aspects of human relations, and their sages were ensconced in the great learning and teaching centers, most prominently Cairo's al-Azhar University. But after 1800, as Egyptians were being socially mobilized, they came to differ along two major dimensions. They were challenged to choose between favoring a secular or an Islamic polity, or some mixture of the two. And they had to pick an identity: pan-Islamic (leaving out the Copts), pan-Arab (excluding the Europeans increasingly resident in Alexandria), or Egyptian (including the Copts but leaving out the Europeans). Table 2-5 illustrates the range and the array of writers active in each of the possible combinations of attitudes. The eventual victory of a secular Egypt-focused national myth was not foreordained—and may not be final.25 Beginnings of Social Mobilization The French invasion, though short, administered the first shock to the traditional society by easily defeating its armies and introducing Enlightenment ideas, journalism, and even the first consultative and bureaucratic institutions. But the ideas would not have found an audience if some mobilization had not already occurred. Throughout the eighteenth century a considerable number of rural notables—medium-sized landowners with entrepreneurial ambitions, all Arabic-speaking Muslims— had acquired an Islamic education and literacy, some wealth, and 25 The correlation of these attitudinal alternatives with behavioral choices is worked out by Richard Cottam. See his "Nationalism in the Middle East: A Behavioral Approach," in Said Amir Arjomand, ed., From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), chap. 2. Confusion over the proper Arabic word for "nation" is a reflection of this complexity. Writers use qaum (usually translated "tribe"), umma (traditionally, the entire community of Muslims), and watan ("fatherland") to label what we call either a nation or a nation-state (apparently in Arabic the distinction is not made). 78

Iran and Egypt Table 2-5. Prominent reformers in the Middle East, 1871-196o

Locus of collective identity Islam Arabism

Egypt

Thematic emphasis Religious Secular al-Afghani Hassan al-Banna Sayyid Qutb Rashid Rida al-Kawaquibi Qustantin Zuraiq

Michel Aflaq Sami Shawkat Amin al-Rihani al-Bazzaz Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Abduh Muhammad Farid Mustafa Kamil Ahmad Lutfi Mustafa al-Maraghi Saad Zaghlul Shaykh Ali Yusuf Taha Husayn (1) Taha Husayn (2) Gamal Abdul Nasser

sufficient identity to develop ideas of upward mobility against the nonArab Mameluk nobility (also the largest landowners) and the mass of illiterate peasants. They also began to trade with Turkey and Europe. Between 1800 and 1840 Muhammad Ali and his immediate successors systematically began to build a quasi-modern Egyptian state that retained many sultanistic elements. He killed most of the Mameluk ruling group, sought to improve agricultural production, and introduced from Europe manufacturing plants capable of making military supplies. He also sent large numbers of Egyptian young men to study in Europe and employed them in his administration after their return. Later reforms, such as the introduction of European-type secondary schools and colleges and the substitution of Arabic for Turkish as the official language, were the work of this group. Muhammad Ali's objective, however, was the creation of a multiethnic empire extending to Syria, Crete, Hejaz, and Sudan, not an Egyptian nation-state. One of Muhammad Ali's successors, Khedive Ismail, wished Egypt to become part of European culture. Though Muslim institutions were in decline, the European educational institutions superimposed on them by Ismail did not take root. While Western forms were being slavishly copied, Western ideas were not understood. With Western trappings in the army and bureaucracy, the system remained an anational sultanism. Still, it allowed the formation of networks of notables and intellectuals 79

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

from which the first nationalist elite was to grow by the end of the century. The new schools catered to the previously mobilized rural notables, who had grown wealthy and occasionally acquired political influence but who were the object of disdain and discrimination by the TurkoCircassian elite. The newly mobilized were not then successfully assimilated. They had to compete also with the many Europeans enticed by Ismail's pro-Western policies to settle and invest in Egypt. Muhammad Ali, not wishing to offend Muslim sensibilities, had not favored Copts in recruiting bureaucrats. Ismail, however, came to rely heavily on them. Newspapers flourished. Christian missions were encouraged, as Islam lost respect and influence under his rule. The leading advisers of Ismail were al-Tahtawi, a translator of Western works, and Ali Mubarak, a military engineer interested in technology transfer. Neither was concerned with political reforms. Nor was Ismail. To legitimate an unpopular tax, however, he felt compelled to initiate the first liberal political changes, and in 1866 he created an elected advisory council consisting only of rich landowners and ulama. This council, by the 187os, made itself the mouthpiece of opposition to the mortgaging of the tax system to the European creditors who financed the khedive's expensive tastes. British Rule and the Acceleration of Social Mobilization In 1879 massive elite opposition to European control over the financial administration forced Ismail to resign in favor of his son. That opposition included two organized parties: the Helwan Society, which wanted to force the khedive to resign, and the Army National Committee, which wanted to get rid of the alien monarchy altogether. The National Committee was made up of Arabic-speaking Muslim officers who mutinied because of the discrimination they felt they had suffered at the hands of their Turko-Circassian commanders. Led by Ahmad Pasha Orabi, they defeated the khedive and provided him with the excuse to call on Great Britain for support. Britain took over Egypt in 1881, stayed until 1923, and returned to reestablish colonial rule in 1940. When the British left again in 1946, they still retained control over the Suez Canal Zone, an area they had not relinquished after 1923. They were finally dislodged from the Suez region by Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1956. The Orabi revolt is hailed by modern Egyptians as the dawn of Egyptian nationalism. At best, the episode triggered the beginning of limited nationalist sentiment among a mobilized elite, not mass national consciousness. In 1879-81 there was an army threatened with a reduction of its ranks, a native official class that detested European interference, a peasantry reeling 8o

Iran and Egypt

under taxation, and a privileged class whose privileges were being curbed by European financial controllers. There were privileged foreigners in the country and a Khedive whose power and dignity had been seriously impaired. There was, that is, smoldering discontent among all strata of society and branches of the administration.26 Even though Britain's policies of rapid modernization and limited liberalization enabled the nationalists to organize, as elsewhere, mass-based Egyptian nationalism developed later in protest against British colonial rule. Britain ruled by using the existing royal administration and by permitting descendants of Muhammad Ali to occupy the throne. Although all decisions were formally made by Egyptians, British administrators, occupying positions paralleling Egyptian ministers and officials, in fact had to approve all measures. Lord Cromer, called "el Lurd" by Egyptians, was London's proconsul from 1883 until 1907 and the real ruler of the country. Cromer stressed the creation of an honest European-style administration rather than economic development. For recruitment, he relied on preexisting Western educational institutions. Copts, who had disproportionately availed themselves of these educational opportunities, continued to furnish a high number of officials. After 1900 the Coptic elite accelerated its entry into the professions and the cotton trade. As a result, this group became a target for Islamic activists. Cromer's successors, however, worked for improved rural welfare through agricultural reforms, irrigation, and cash cropping. Local government was made elective in 1908; a central elected legislative council with power to debate, but not enact, policy was set up, too. An indigenous system of courts was created to apply Western-style criminal and civil codes, thus directly competing with Shari'a courts. In 1914 Britain announced the creation of a formal protectorate that was to lead to democratic self-government; Egyptian nationalists interpreted this measure as a temporary occupation that would lead to full independence. Wartime measures accelerated modernization and social mobilization. One and a half million peasants were conscripted into a labor corps that accompanied the British army in its campaigns against the Turks. British dependence on military supplies and food produced in Egypt caused profiteering and growth in middle-class wealth, but attendant shortages aroused much anti-British feeling among the urban poor. The visible presence of large British forces also contributed to a heightened sense of xenophobia. Moreover, British military censorship clamped down on freedom of expression that had previously been encouraged. Many in the 26 P. J. Vatikiotis, The History of Egypt, 3d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 159.

8

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

elite began actively to resent a British policy of creating a Sudan separate from Egypt (Egypt had controlled the Sudan until 188o). Ideologies of Opposition During the 188os distinct syncretist and liberal nationalist ideologies were slowly and tentatively articulated, ideologies that acquired a large organized following after 1goo as mobilized/unassimilated middle-class professionals took advantage of the protodemocratic institutions installed by Britain. From the beginning, however, the focus of this nationalism remained fuzzy; its prophets were unable to choose clearly among Islam, Arabism, and an Egyptian territorial identity. Thus, al-Afghani, one of the first Middle Eastern prophets of nationalism, could be read as wanting to strengthen the Islamic world against Western encroachment. It was unclear, however, whether he wanted truly to save Islam (which would make him a restorative syncretist) or merely to use its symbolism to legitimate Westernization (thus making him a reformist syncretist). Muhammad Abduh, an important intellectual forerunner of Egyptian nationalism, also showed uncertainty on these points.27 The arousal of Egypt-focused nationalist sentiment among intellectuals owed a great deal to these reformist forerunners, whose interest in saving Islam outweighed their concern for Egypt. Al-Tahtawi, though concerned with reinterpreting Islam to allow the introduction of some Western institutions, was impressed with pharaonic Egypt and suggested the existence of an Egyptian culture that included much pre-Islamic content. Though concerned with preserving ulama influence, he also spoke of an Egyptian watan with a continuous territorial history. Muhammad Abduh advocated reformist-syncretist ideas and acted on them while a high official under British rule, which he welcomed as progressive. He saw Egypt as a melting-pot culture, though he used the theological term umma to describe its identity. Stressing the interpretive doctrine of ijtihad, he worked for women's emancipation, secularizing the curriculum of al-Azhar, and freedom of expression. His pan-Arab sentiments were expressed in his concern for the purification of the Arabic language. His most prominent follower, Rashid Rida, propounded a much more restorative syncretism that stressed pan-Islamic rather than Westernizing ideas focused on 27 For the history of Egyptian nationalist thought, see Jamal Mohammed Ahmed, The Intellectual Origins of Egyptian Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 196o). Pan-Arab nationalist thinkers did not include Egypt in their "Arab nation" until after 1936, and few of them worked in Egypt; only the ones listed in the middle/right cell in table 2-5 were able to disentangle pan-Islamic from pan-Arab thinking. For details, see Sylvia G. Haim, ed., Arab Nationalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), especially the editor's excellent introduction.

82

Iran and Egypt

Egypt. Other intellectuals around the turn of the century expressed their resentment of British rule by combining Islamic revivalist ideas with support for the Ottoman empire in a kind of traditional syncretism that avoided an Egyptian identity. Their most prominent spokesman was Mustafa Kamil, the founder of the Nationalists, one of the first political parties. True Egypt-focused nationalist thought begins with Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid (1872-1962), a Whig-liberal nationalist who identified the Egyptian umma unconditionally with the historic people of the Nile valley, regardless of religious identity. There is also a suggestion of romantic integralism, however, because he thought of the umma as an organic whole. By occupation an educational reformer and journalist, he put his faith in the growth of Western secular education as the guarantor of eventual Egyptian independence and democracy. One of his concerns was making Egyptology an Egyptian rather than a Western enterprise. Lutfi was among the founders of the Wafd, the political party that was to lead Egypt to independence in 1923. As the Umma Party, it learned parliamentary rule in the General Assembly Britain had sanctioned. The nationalist leader who accomplished this task was the charismatic Saad Zaghlul. He transformed the Umma Party into a mass-based organization by successfully appealing to small and middle-sized independent peasants, urban intellectuals and students, Copts reassured by his secularism, and increasingly manufacturers who liked his economic nationalism. His agitation led to the revolutionary situation of 1919, in which demands for the end of British rule were formally raised. The existence of urban and rural middle-class nationalism can be dated from that year, though social mobilization was still under way. Thanks to British reforms, rural welfare and political awareness had increased markedly by then. Britain had intensified the creation of secular educational institutions begun in the I86os. A literate, rural middle class had developed which sent its children to these Western schools, thus leading to the evolution of Egyptian professionals and professional associations. Copts took advantage of British rule by entering these schools, gaining admittance to the civil service and coming to dominate the trade in cotton, which was Egypt's primary export. These were the people who chafed under British rule; they, after the founding of the Umma Party in 1907, demanded constitutional government and independence by 1914. Syncretists and liberals, Islamists, Ottomanists, and pan-Arabists could all agree on one issue: the Sudan ought to be Egyptian. Drawing on the now familiar myth of the unity of the civilization of the Nile, the first civilization in human history, the future of the Sudan became a battle cry in the revolution of 1919. The future, independent Egypt was portrayed as the heir of the pharaohs and their empires. 83

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS BIRTH OF THE UNRATIONALIZED NATION-STATE

Political Mobilization Precedes Social Mobilization The Wafd that created a more or less independent Egyptian state in the wake of the 1919 revolution sprang from a rural population that had undergone very little social mobilization. They were unlike the small stratum of Western-educated descendants of the rural notables augmented by the many merchants who had profited from World War I procurement and who were only then investing in the beginnings of Egyptian industry. Literacy did not exceed Io percent; the bulk of the population remained rural and made its poor living off agriculture. The urban population, however, began to increase very rapidly after 1920, partly in response to increasing inequality in landownership. By 1940 there were two million landless agricultural workers. In 1952 6 percent of the richest families owned 65 percent of the arable land. The leaders of the Wafd were overwhelmingly recruited from the class of rural notables. Wafd supporters founded the Bank Misr in 1920, which in turn financed and owned most of the new industry set up in the following two decades: cotton spinning, publishing, printing, transportation, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. After 1930 these concerns were protected by a tariff. By 1947 there were a mere 200,000 urban industrial workers. As a result of the Great Depression's impact on the cotton market, living standards declined by almost 5o percent during the 193os. Because the Wafd devoted much energy and money to the fostering of education and encouraged the building of technical schools and universities, by 1937 there were I I,000 unemployed holders of bachelor's degrees. The details are shown in tables 2-6 and 2-7. Britain turned over the bulk of government to Egyptian control in 1922. London retained military and administrative control over the Suez Canal Zone. The Egyptian army was trained and organized according to British practice and commanded by a British general. Britain also insisted that the rights of non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities be safeguarded. Even though the Sudan was, in theory, ruled jointly by Cairo and London, British unilateral control prevailed in fact. Moreover, Britain intervened militarily on certain occasions to drive home the point that Egypt remained less than fully sovereign. When Britain did so in 1942 to compel the king to cease his flirtation with the Axis powers, the Wafd government lost what little domestic legitimacy it had left. Although British imperialism legitimated the Wafd in 1919, it delegitimated it finally in 1942, but only after the Wafd had left behind its liberal-nationalist creed and lost its appeal for those Egyptians newly mobilized by the expansion of education and commerce. 84

Table 2-6. Egypt: Indicators of modernization 1880

1900

1930

1950

1960

1990

Population (millions)a

6.8

N/A

52.1

N/A

14.2 N/A

26.o

Percent of GNP from agricultureb

9.7 N/A

85

Percent of capital invested in joint stock companies'

N/A

N/A

8o

220

N/A

N/A

Percent of workers in agriculture" Average annual decrease

N/A

68.3

67.5

N/A

57.0

36.8

N/A

N/A

0.04

0.32

0.92

Growth of per capita GNP ( %)e

N/A

N/A

-0.2

N/A

4.1

0.1

34.4 (1955) 1 3.4 (1955)

2 9.7

(1965) 26.6 (1955)

26.3 (1973) 21.3 (1973)

11.4

2 3.4

Sector shares in GDP'. % agriculture % industry Sectoral allocation of investment'. % agriculture % industry % housing % services

(1940)

(1935) 23.8 (1935) 32.5 ( 1935) 15.8 (1935)

(1965) 26.6 (1965) 10.7 (1965) 1 7.5

(1965)

26.3 (1973) 21.3 (1973) 4.6 (1973) 12.4 (1973)

NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained. a Figures for 1900 are for 1897, figures for 1930 are for 1927, from Khalid Ikram, Egypt: Economic Management in a Period of Transition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), p. 106. Figures for 1990 are from World Development Report 1992 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 218. According to Charles Issawi, Egypt at Mid-Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), there is reason to believe that the 1927 (and 1937) censuses underestimated the population. Average annual increases for the periods 1897-1927 and 1927-60 calculated using the average annual population growth rates presented in Ikram, Egypt, p. 106. Average annual increase for the period 1960-90 calculated using average annual population growth figures for the period 1965-90 from World Development Report 1992, p. 268. b Vatikiotis, History of Egypt, pp. 322-25. • Nadav Safran, Egypt in Search of Political Community (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 183. d Figures for 1900 are for 1907, figures for 1930 are for 1927, and figures for 1990 are for 1982. All from Robert Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 38. For 1960, Bent Hansen, The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth: Egypt and Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 73, gives the figure 56.3% and Ikram, Egypt, p. 139, gives 53.1%. e Figures refer to gross national incomes at market price per capita for the periods 1929 to 1939, 1959-60 to 1964-65, and 1981-82 to 1986-87. All are from Hansen, Political Economy, pp. 6-7. Hansen notes that the figure for 1929-39 is "conjecture." f Robert Mabro and Samir Radwan, Industrialization of Egypt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), tables 3.3 and 3.4•

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Table 2-7. Egypt: Indicators of social mobilization

Urban population (%)a % annual increase School enrollment (% of relevant age group) b Primary Secondary Higher Literacy (% of over Io years of age)' Average annual increase Newspaper circulation (per thousand)d Radios (registered) (per thousand)d

1900

1930

1960

1990

N/A

N/A

38

47 0.31

N/A N/A N/A 7.3

N/A N/A N/A 14.1 0.3

66 16 5 29.5 0.5 18 11

97 81 20 50.6

o.8

a Figure for 196o is from Ikram, Egypt, p. 142. Figure for 1990 is from World Development Report 1992, p. 278. Safran, Egypt in Search, reports 19% for 195o. b Figures for 196o are from Hansen, Political Economy, p. 233. Figures for 1990 are for 1989 and are from World Development Report 1992, p. 274. The figures for 1989 seem high since, according to Hansen's figures for 198o, only 78% of the relevant age group was enrolled at the primary level, 54% at the secondary level, and 18% at the tertiary level. Figures for Igoo are for 1907, figures for 193o are for 1927, and figures for 1990 are for 1986. All from Hansen, Political Economy, p. 25. d From Issawi, Egypt at Mid-Century. Figures are for 195o.

Wafd Nationalist Ideology and Policy The father of the Egyptian nation-state, Saad Zaghlul, began as a liberal nationalist and ended as an integralist. The Wafd he led to power in 1923 was devoted to the creation of a secular nation-state with liberal institutions and values. An Egyptian nation was to be called to life, not an Islamic or Arab one. The unity of the civilization of the Nile was a core theme, as was the pharaonic origin of Egyptian nationhood. Other Wafdists stressed Egypt's role in the evolution of a Mediterranean civilization, thus underlining ties with European and especially French rationalism. The creed called for the creation of a constitutional order based on popular sovereignty, indifferent to Islam. Taha Husayn, one of their leading writers, considered the Arabs foreign conquerors and the unity of state and church harmful for political harmony. The nation, neither the 86

Iran and Egypt

king nor the ulama, was to define the duty and training of qadis and the role of Shari'a courts. Reform of al-Azhar University to make this possible was one of the core Wafd planks. During these thirty years of quasi-independence little was achieved that might have rationalized Egypt as a nation-state. The Wafd alternated between encouraging and repressing trade unions. All governments repressed dissent. Political violence was common. Attempts to abolish the Shari'a courts and the office of mufti were effectively sabotaged by the king and his party, even though Taha Husayn asserted that being a good Muslim does not require the ulama! al-Azhar campaigned to have an Egyptian assume the role of caliph after Kemal Ataturk abolished the office, though the Wafd argued that there was no need for a caliph since constitutional government and Islam are fully compatible. Though consistently defending the constitution against the king's frequent authoritarian interventions, the Wafd's Blue Shirts strongly resembled fascist youth movements in form and function. Though populist in its appeal, the internal organization of the party was rigidly hierarchical. Wafd foreign and educational policies, however, were fully consistent with the creation of a rationalized nation-state. The Wafd made the elimination of illiteracy a core task. Even though that goal was not reached, Wafd governments increased the number of schools at all levels, created state universities, and regulated the numerous private schools run by resident aliens. Arabic took the place of English as the language of instruction. The Wafd followed an unflinching policy of pressure on Britain to evacuate the Suez Canal Zone, restore the Sudan to Egypt, loosen Britain's military grip, and rescind the capitulations giving Europeans extraterritorial rights. But after British troops had forced the king to stop his flirtation with the Axis powers in 1942, the Wafd chose to cooperate with Britain and delegitimated itself as the champion of anti-imperialism. The Wafd ruled much of the time between 1923 and 1952, whenever the king was unable to use his substantial constitutional powers to cause cabinets to fall, thwart the result of elections, and nullify legislation. Nevertheless, the Wafd also contributed to instability because it circumvented the constitution whenever democracy seemed to get in the way of winning. Governments loyal to the king altered the electoral law several times to weaken the Wafd's hold on the electorate. Zaghlul unilaterally suspended civil liberties and became a virtual dictator, a practice emulated by royalist politicians with the king's encouragement. Nahhas Pasha, the Wafd chief during the 1940s, mobilized violent mobs whenever he felt the need to protect his rule against royal interference. 87

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Failure to Rationalize, Growth of Integral Nationalism None of these actions legitimated democracy or liberal governance in the eyes of the populace. Intellectuals, members of the professions, and students increasingly turned to integralist parties and creeds after 1935. In the words of novelist Tawfiq al-Hakim, "Democracy . . . is a group of hungry, barefooted men paying a monthly salary of forty pounds to another group [parliamentary representatives] composed of wealthy men."28 Unlike the case of Iran, syncretist forces were not then prominent in the Egyptian nationalist movement; they did not appear until the 193os. Liberal intellectuals schooled in Western ways dominated the process of ideational articulation since the British takeover. If the liberals missed their chance to build a democratic nation-state after 1923, it was essentially their own fault. They were not very convinced or effective liberals, and apart from encouraging occasional mob action, they lacked the desire to organize a mass base. Their broad electoral support among peasants rested on traditional patron-client relations, not organized and mobilized opinion. Unlike the situation in Iran, the leadership felt little need or desire to cater to Islamic feelings of solidarity and order; thus it failed to establish organizational links with the unmobilized. Much the same was true of the Copts. The educated elite participated in public affairs; the rural mass remained inert. But modernization and social mobilization accelerated rapidly as a result of the Great Depression and of World War II. Both events involved Egypt more directly than Iran and had a more direct impact on urbanization, industrialization, and the commercialization of economic relations. These events also created large numbers of newly uprooted people. The period 1945-52 was chaotic, utterly devoid of any consensus on governance and civic values. Governments came and went. King Faruq intervened constantly, seeking to destroy vestiges of constitutionalism. Riots and strikes were everyday events; all governments used terrorist tactics to repress them. There were many conspiracies by army officers, usually allied with one of the integralist nationalist movements, aimed at sweeping away parliamentary government. Writers attacked the status quo ferociously, as preserving injustice, clericalism, and royal autocracy. Successive Wafd governments responded to these challenges with demagogic measures, including connivance at the burning of downtown Cairo in 1951 and the unilateral denunciation of the 1936 treaty with Britain. Moreover, unrest was increasingly fueled by the large number of unemployed graduates of secondary schools and universities, mobilized but not assimilated into the higher status to which they felt entitled. " As quoted in Nadav Safran, Egypt in Search of Political Community (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 201.

88

Iran and Egypt

Many sought a remedy by joining nationalist movements professing an integralist commitment. The communist and socialist parties, though never significant and usually persecuted by the state, provided one outlet. The rural notables who had earlier supported the Wafd now tended to support the king because they felt threatened by the Wafd's populist rhetoric. Kings Fuad and Faruq, in turn, conspired with the army and with al-Azhar to destroy the Wafd. Graduates of al-Azhar who sought civil service appointments were increasingly marginalized because Wafd governments preferred candidates with secular educations. Such people provided the clientele for what became the best-organized and most committed antiliberal group, the Muslim Brotherhood. The nationalist revolution that came close to rationalizing Egypt, however, was made by members of the Military Academy's class of 1938, selfdefined as the Free Officers, who were organized and led by Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1949. They, in turn, took their cue from an older integralist movement, Young Egypt. Young Egypt was founded in 1933 by a group of law school graduates. Its purpose was the revival of pharaonic Egyptian glories in the form of a modern Egyptian empire that expelled foreign imperialists. Committed behavior and rigid organization were valued, just as in the European fascist models praised by the founders: Our slogan is God, Fatherland and King. Our objective is for Egypt to become . . . a great empire, comprising Egypt and the Sudan, allied to the Arab states, and leading to the Muslim community. Our overall policy is to put foreigners in their proper place as guests, not masters, . .. by abolishing the Capitulations and Mixed Tribunals, . . . by the Egyptianization of foreign companies . . . and the making of Arabic the official language of commerce, and Friday the official day of rest, and the prohibition of foreigners to work in Egypt without special permission. .. . The earth is the heritage of the strong and the future belongs to the victorious people who have a right to life. The struggle for existence . . . is also one for domination. Egypt will retrieve her ancient glory. Our duty as students is to construct a new country. Come let us erect our future greatness on a foundation of steel.. . . Industry and commerce constitute the civilization of modern nations. . . . Let us preach the greatness, glory and history of Egypt. Let us support social, moral and cultural innovation.29

Young Egypt's initial program reflected the militant commitment to secular innovation to achieve autarky. It included land reform, massive irrigation works, rural modernization by means of producers' cooperatives, development of agri-industrial complexes, accelerated industrialization, 29 As quoted in P. J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and His Generation (London: Groom Helm, 1978), PP. 72-73.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

and the nationalization of banking and commerce. It called for compulsory military service, making higher education more accessible to the poor, radios for every village, and the creation of a state-run social insurance system. Later programs, however, shifted the emphasis to a revival of Islam as the core of Egyptian identity; in 1940 the movement changed its name to National Islamic Party and made its mission the liberation of all Arab lands." But by 1950 the emphasis had shifted to a Leninist vision of the nation with stress on nationalization of industry and collectivization of agriculture. Nasser's Free Officers, deeply implicated in the conspiracies and terrorism sometimes perpetrated by Young Egypt's militants, accepted almost the entire program as theirs in the form of "Arab Socialism." Post1952 Arab Socialism reflects almost all these aims. The Free Officers came overwhelmingly from lower-middle-class families; their road to upward social mobility followed from the modern educational and organizational skills they received in the military. Yet they felt marginalized and unappreciated by the elite, by the king's entourage as well as the Wafd. For the Free Officers, the Palestine war of 1948 was the event that symbolized most acutely the corruption of the status quo. They thought of Palestine as an essential, strategic component in their plans for a future Egyptian empire because it provided a bridge to the Arab Middle East. It also served as a pan-Arab symbol because Zionism was seen as the newest form of Western imperialism from which the "Arab nation" had to be protected. Widespread corruption in the administration, the Free Officers thought, explained the crushing military defeat Egypt suffered when it sought to realize these strategic and ideological objectives. The defeat "proved" to the Free Officers the correctness of their ideology. Islamic Nationalism: The Muslim Brotherhood The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in the 1920S, had become the largest and best-organized mass movement in Egypt by 1950, with possibly five hundred thousand members. It remains the most powerful dissident movement today despite decades of severe persecution. It sym" Young Egypt—affiliated writers were among those who first saw Egypt as part of the "Arab nation," along with the founder of the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party, Michel Aflaq. Until then the word iqlimiyya ("regionalism") was used to denote the Middle East ties, and it carried the kind of derogatory implication that "tribalism" has in Africa. The affiliation with Arabism in general was made "official" by Abd-al Rahman Azzam, the first secretary-general of the League of Arab States, an Egyptian. The league was founded in 1944 as a result of a joint Egyptian-British initiative. The Free Officers' inconsistent pan-Arabism may be traced to their ties with Young Egypt. Most of the pan-Arab nationalist schemes of these years favored integralist values and institutions, mixing fascist and Marxist ideas.

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Iran and Egypt bolizes the survival of active public religious sentiment after an unbroken history of state-fostered protoliberal and integralist secular nationalism. The Brotherhood shared Young Egypt's commitment to fighting Britain, Zionism, the monarchy, and the Wafd. But even during the Islamic phase of Young Egypt, the two differed over religion: the Brotherhood always fought for maintaining the tight link between Shari'a-based public and private life and the rule of the state. It was syncretist in the sense that it wished to create a modern polity based on the rule of the Sunna, though this demand was presented as a return to the pure rule of the Prophet and his companions, not as a Western polity with an Islamic veneer as advocated by the reformers of the nineteenth century. The Brotherhood's Islam was conceived as an explicitly religious creed designed to inspire opposition to Western liberalism, fascism, and socialism. When it was expressed as a nationalist ideology, the Brethren spoke in the idiom of restorative syncretism, though their program belied it. Yet the Muslim Brotherhood has had difficulty defining itself as standing for Egyptian nationalism because it was mostly concerned with Islamic antisecularism and anti-Westernism, with articulating a reformed Islamic polity. The Brotherhood also became a pan-Arab organization in 1954 as many of its leaders were forced into Jordanian and Saudi exile by Nasser. One aspect of its modernism is its recognition that a bureaucratic state is essential to modern life. Hence its program necessarily called for opposing and drastically reforming the existing state. Thus, members of the Brotherhood became Egyptian nationalists by default without ever quite shedding the pan-Islamic and pan-Arab rhetoric. It was probably the statist emphasis that made the Brotherhood attractive to certain of the Free Officers, notably Anwar Sadat.5' To whom does this creed appeal? The clientele of the Brotherhood includes people from all walks of life. But recent migrants to the cities with professional or secondary educations are disproportionately represented. The number of engineers and teachers among the membership is 31 The founder of the Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, was a disciple of Rashid Rida, who advocated the creation of a vanguard society of ulama to teach pure Islam while society awaited the reestablishment of the caliphate. Both Rida and al-Banna were pan-Islamists; alBanna advocated the creation of an organization of Muslim nations; Egyptians were to have dual nationality. A subsequent leader of the Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, taught a vanguard doctrine that led to several splits in the organization. He thought that the Brotherhood must reenact sacred history by creating a small group willing to make war on modern society to hasten its collapse and rebirth in purified form, thus following the example of the Prophet and his companions. The spin-offs were radical terrorists who claimed the mission to carry out this injunction. Several prominent government officials were assassinated by these groups, including Anwar Sadat. They took such names as God's Soldiers, Holy War Association, Society of Muslims Who Charge Society with Unbelief, and Followers of Khomeini.

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striking. Members are very upwardly mobile but frequently disappointed about blocked careers and lack of employment opportunities. Brethren who had enjoyed religious educations are appalled by the secularism of the professions for which they qualify. Recent arrivals from rural areas are alienated by the impersonality and competitiveness of urban life, which they blame on the West, capitalism, or socialism.32 A glance at the Brotherhood's program makes clear why membership has been booming in the Egypt of rapid social mobilization and spotty assimilation. The Brotherhood maintains many schools, hospitals, adult religious discussion groups, factories, stores, newspapers, and social services. Ruled by a supreme guide, the Brotherhood has in recent years featured these overt, populist, and participatory activities over the vanguard secret army organization that engaged in terrorism and guerrilla warfare in earlier years, until those more committed to militancy split off to found new terrorist organizations. The novelist Naguib Mahfouz had his Shaykh Ali al-Manufi explain matters crisply: The teachings and precepts of Islam provide a comprehensive answer to the problems people confront in reference to this world and the next. Those who assume that its doctrines apply only to the spiritual and devotional aspects of life are mistaken. Islam is a creed, a way of worship, a nation and a nationality, a religion, a state, a form of spirituality, a Holy Book and a sword." NASSERITE INTEGRALISM, SUPERFICIAL RATIONALIZATION

Social and Economic Mobilization The integralist Egypt built by Gamal Abdul Nasser and the Free Officers as a result of the bloodless revolution of 1952 greatly accelerated the process of social and economic mobilization. The committee of officers who became the first government, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), believed in the need to industrialize quickly by way of import sub32 For data supporting this conclusion, see Eric Davis, "Ideology, Social Class, and Islamic Radicalism in Modern Egypt," in Arjomand, From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam, pp. 140-45. The thorough study of religious fundamentalism sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences came to the conclusion that the most likely persons to be attracted to these movements are the following: recent peasant migrants to urban slums looking for a new sense of community; urban lower-middle-class people and professionals feeling alienated from urban culture by the perceived amorality and impersonality of interpersonal relations and links to the state; and peasants feeling exploited by repression and impersonal market relations and feeling abandoned by their traditional faiths. The first two of these groups are found in Egypt. " Naguib Mahfouz, Sugar Street (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 275.

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stitution. This, they thought, required the state to seize the "commanding heights of the economy" and to make the necessary heavy investments, but otherwise to rule in cooperation with the private sector. Agriculture was to be favored and made to pay for industrialization to the extent that foreign investors proved unwilling to do so. Initially, the RCC was friendlier to foreign investors than the Wafd had been. Import substitution was to occur first in the durable consumer goods sector. The tepid interest shown by private industry, however, soon persuaded the RCC to adopt the methods of state socialist planning and administration. Arab Socialism, the ideology developed to justify the choice, was less a coherent doctrine than a set of slogans that followed the administrative practice of centralized economic planning. It claimed to represent an economic doctrine of industrial progress that avoided the pitfalls of capitalism and communism. By 1967 the state had confiscated and redistributed more than 750p00 feddan of agricultural land to 318,000 peasant families, a mere 16 percent of the cultivated area, from which about i o percent of rural families benefited. These measures had the result of reducing somewhat the inequities in landownership. In 1936 31 percent of the cultivated area was tilled by the smallest holders (93.4 percent of all owners); in 1961 52 percent of the cultivated area was tilled by the smallest holders, still 94 percent of all owners. The share of the largest landowners had shrunk to 15 percent of the cultivated area from 39 percent in 1936. Coptic landowners of large estates were especially hard-hit by the reforms. In 1939 almost 14,000 students attended al-Azhar and a mere 8,800 attended the secular universities; by 1952 there were 35,000 secular students as opposed to 19,000 Azharites. The Marxoid version of Arab Socialism came into its own when Nasser in 1961 decreed the nationalization of all banks, insurance companies, foreign trade, heavy and medium manufacturing and food processing plants, public transport and public utilities, hotels, cinemas, and publishing houses. Again, Copts were disproportionately affected as compared with Muslims. The national symbol of centralized planning was the Aswan High Dam, a massive construction project designed not only to provide irrigation and flood control for the beneficiaries of the land reform but also to make possible the dramatic expansion of arable land. Egyptian agriculture was to move into the desert, away from the narrow strip along the Nile floodplain. The project was far too expensive to be financed by Egypt alone. Nasser expected the United States, Britain, and the World Bank to lend the necessary funds and was given to understand that the funds would be forthcoming if he moderated his pan-Arab rhetoric. Assurances of support were withdrawn when he refused to do so. Thereupon he obtained the 93

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

necessary financing from the Soviet Union and initiated a long-lasting alliance with Moscow despite his earlier embrace of neutralism in cold war politics. He also began his campaign for the final expulsion of Britain from the Suez Canal. Once the West had proved unwilling to finance the Egyptian revolution, Nasser used his foreign policy of Arab solidarity in confronting the West, and his willingness to rely on the Soviet Union, as the essential handmaidens to his plans for dramatic domestic development. The stateowned sector was larger than that of any other noncommunist country; in 1984 54 percent of the nonagricultural workforce still made its living in the state sector even though liberalization was already being pursued. Table 2-7 shows other results of these policies. Institutions of Totalitarian Rule Though Nasser's rule was clearly totalitarian, neither the rigor of the institutions nor the brutality of the practices approached that of the more familiar communist and fascist models. Until 1962 the RCC improvised. Political parties were banned. In their place a succession of single parties was created to provide for compulsory mass organizations and mass mobilization. They had no active policy-making role. After the secession of Sy, is from its short-lived union with Egypt—the United Arab Republic (UAR)—a new party, the Arab Socialist Union, took their place. Because the revolutionary regime was the result of a successful mutiny by junior against senior officers, the new rulers thoroughly distrusted the army as a power base. Always suspicious of possible makers of a countercoup among brother officers, Nasser, and especially Anwar Sadat at his assumption of the presidency in 1970, often purged the ranks of the army. Even the appointment of the popular field marshal Abdul Hakim Amer, Nasser's best friend, as commander in chief failed to subordinate the armed forces to unambiguous control by the president. As the military was increasingly used in the administration of state enterprises—and thus enabled to enrich itself at public expense—as well as in policing opponents of the regime, it became a more reliable, if more corrupt, partner in governance. After the breakup of the UAR, Nasser sought to give Egypt a collectivist ideology and a set of permanent secular institutions. His Charter of National Action explains that Egyptian "democracy" is to be different from the West's because it is to be based on the will of all "popular forces," which can dispense with constitutions and parties. Elections to functional and local councils are to affirm the popular will and legitimate the collective leadership of the Free Officers. Freedom and the rule of law are subject to being circumscribed by the popular will. Constant criticism and 94

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self-criticism are required to keep these institutions from becoming corrupted. Science and reason, not divine inspiration, are needed to sustain a dedicated leadership that makes the right policy choices.34 Several police forces were created to make sure the popular will prevailed. Since their members sometimes were able to seize for themselves the property of the enemies of the people, bloody feuds occurred with a change in the fortunes of various cliques.35 Surveillance of the public and denunciations were a standard feature of Nasserist rule. Muslim Brethren were the largest group of victims; between 1954 and 1971 they accounted for ten thousand of approximately fifteen thousand people imprisoned for political reasons.36 Most were tortured and many executed. The popular will, after 1961, was to be channeled by the Arab Socialist Union (ASU). Nasser created it because he feared that the predecessor single party might fall under the control of his enemies. All adult Egyptians had to belong, but the ASU was really animated by its voluntary vanguard core. The purpose of the ASU was to "melt" different classes, mobilize the poor masses against the wealthy, act as a counterweight to the army, and project the revolution into other Arab countries so as to combat the Ba'ath, the most powerful pan-Arab, Marxist-Islamic grouping. ASU also became the peak organization for a number of compulsory functional and professional associations through which state corporatism was established. However, though intended to preserve the revolution from the corrupting influence of the army and the bureaucracy, which actually ran the state enterprises, the ASU itself soon became subject to exactly the same temptations. Its leaders too practiced personal enrichment and sought their own advancement rather than displayed revolutionary zea1.37 In what later was called "the corrective revolution," Sadat in 1971 liquidated the ASU and arrested its leaders because they opposed his presi" I have used the text of the charter given in Nissim Rejwan, Nasserist Ideology (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1974), especially pp. 217, 224-25, 247, 251-55. Since Nasser rejected European constitutional models as imperialistic and Islam as feudalistic, he was compelled to adopt an essentially Leninist formulation. " Egyptian administration is characterized by the presence of informal networks, known as shilla, of friends and ex—school classmates whose memberships cut across administrative units. These networks competed fiercely with one another for influence and graft and thus impeded orderly administration. Although Nasser and Sadat were unable to curb them, Mubarak apparently did. " These figures are given in John Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), chap. 14. " James Rosberg argues that Nasser, in the last few years of his rule, so despaired of his ability to make totalitarian institutions work as he wished that he actively encouraged the judiciary to hear complaints of bureaucratic malfeasance and thus aid him in controlling the bureaucracy. He also played with the idea of creating a second official party to keep the ASU honest. These insights were gained, in part, as a result of the defeat inflicted in 1967 by Israel. See James Rosberg, "Roads to the Rule of Law" (Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995), pp. 112-22.

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dency. He also took cautious steps toward the rule of law by curbing the powers of the police and strengthening the mandate of the judiciary. He did this not because he approved of liberalism but because he doubted that the existing totalitarian institutions could purge the economy of inefficiency. "I believe," he said, "that a one-man rule is fraught with dangers. Because no one can really know everything, some of his assistants will concentrate power in their hands, and so to speak, run amok—creating power bases just as had happened in Nasser's case."38 Even. though the 1956 constitution made Islam the state religion and Islamic instruction in all schools compulsory, the Shari'a courts were abolished in 1956 and the awaqf were confiscated. Copts felt persecuted by these reforms because the civil codes enforced against all after 1956 still owed more to Islamic law than to Western and because Copts were barely represented in the higher ranks of bureaucracy and the "elected" pseudoparliament. They remained politically quiescent, however, perhaps appeased by the token representation Nasser later gave them. Concessions to Islamic sensibilities were confined to symbolic gestures, such as a few fleeting references in the Charter of National Action and the presence of revolutionary leaders at Friday services. Despite the regime's secularism, however, Western culture was not welcome. Foreign schools, though not abolished, experienced a reduction in their role. Foreign newspapers and publications were forbidden. The European residents who had long dominated cultural life in Alexandria were encouraged to leave as foreign-owned businesses were confiscated. The corporatism practiced under the auspices of the ASU was not altogether inclusive. It explicitly stigmatized as outsiders those deemed and "enemies of the people," such as former landlords. Earlier, trade unions had been made part of the ASU; strikes were prohibited and dissident labor leaders executed. Half of all seats in elected corporatist bodies were reserved for the representatives of workers and peasants. Still, the management boards of industrial establishments and of agricultural cooperatives were effectively dominated by the relevant bureaucracies. Security of employment, however, was almost absolute. The main instrument of social policy was a striving for full employment with increasing worker benefits, which resulted in enormous industrial mismanagement and huge losses in the operations of nationalized enterprises.39 "exploiters"

Ibid., p. 162. Bent Hansen goes so far as to consider this arrangement a "social compact" consecrated in the Charter of 1962 and Sadat's October Paper of 1974. The compact implies that Arab Socialism and the government will raise every Egyptian's standard of living, in exchange for which the Egyptian populace will not challenge the totalitarian-corporatist 38

39

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Corporatism and spying on behalf of the RCC were increasingly hard to distinguish. The vanguard core of the ASU spied on the ministries and the industrial management boards. Each factory had a "union" and a joint labor-management consultative committee, again to function as watchdogs over the army officers and bureaucrats officially in charge. The fact remains that the Free Officers enjoyed a great deal of legitimacy because of their acceptance by the peasantry as "theirs." Nasser and his colleagues, most of them grandsons of "middle" peasants, were seen as true representatives of rural interests. Probably rural areas and the strata from which the new elite sprang benefited disproportionately from "socialist" economic policies. Yet, despite widespread innovation in the use of radio and television for mobilizing rural Egypt, many of the precorporatist local associations, secular as well as religious confraternities, remained intact. The Integralist National Myth Even though Arab Socialism was supposed to be the Nasserite national myth, there never was a reliable consensus on the content of the doctrine. The freedom it stressed was the ability of the state to prevail against other states, not individual liberty.40 Nasser after 1962 seemed to be more interested in asserting Egypt's international position than in domestic reform; he, unlike his successors, treated economic and social development as a means for achieving external glory, which he identified with the ageless quest of all Egyptian history. Egypt's mission was defined by its geographical position: Nasser's "three circles of influence" doctrine destined Egypt to shape events in Africa and in the Arab and the Islamic worlds; to remove and repel the forces of Western imperialism from all three; and to purge the area of past humiliations." The mission blended Egyptian, pan-Arab, and panIslamic objectives into one without claiming priority for any. regime. Things have worked out this way, on the whole, with the exception of the violent disaffection of the fundamentalist Islamists. See Hansen, The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth: Egypt and Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 116-17. 4° Before 1955 relations between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Free Officers had been close. The Brotherhood supported the 1952 coup; some officers had been members of the Brotherhood. But the Brotherhood opposed the land reform and the evident secular preferences of most Free Officers. It hated Israel for pan-Islamic reasons, whereas the officers were mostly animated by pan-Arabism. 41 Nasser considered the 1956 defeat of Britain and France along the Suez Canal (though brought about by United Nations intervention, not Egyptian arms) a reenactment of the Muslim defeat of Louis IX's crusade in the 1249 battle of Mansura. For an extended argument that Nasser's pan-Arabism was merely camouflage for a full-fledged effort to build a major Middle Eastern empire around an Egyptian core, see Ian S. Lustick, "The Absence of Middle Eastern Great Powers," International Organization (Autumn 1997): 667-70. Some

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In the National Charter the terms "Arab nation" and "Egyptian people" are used as synonyms. The country's name became "Arab Republic of Egypt." Often it is unclear whether "Arab revolution" refers to major domestic or regional changes. Islam was only one historical force that inspired Egyptians to assume the "main role in defense of civilization and mankind." Pharaonic and Greco-Roman leaders were just as prominent and heroic in the history of the Nile valley. So were the nineteenthcentury modernizers and Orabi Pasha. The revolution of 1952 was merely the resumption of the aborted 1919 uprising. In addition, Nasser stressed the spiritual and practical role of science and scientific principle as a guide to correct policy. Arab Socialism was to be understood in this light. Egypt's school system under Nasser, however, reflected little of this ideology. Quranic schools and the extensive religious school system run by al-Azhar at all levels escaped the secular emphasis of the main system. All schools, and the media, abandoned the use of modern-standard Arabic in favor of spoken Egyptian Arabic, which probably strengthened the sense of kinship between the masses and their leaders and shortened the social distance between literates and illiterates. Despite these further steps accelerating social mobilization, however, it is doubtful that the obvious cognitive chasm separating secularists, traditional Muslims, Muslim fundamentalists, and Copts allows us to speak of a consensual civil religion. The Foreign Policy of Pan-Arabism What, concretely, was Nasser's foreign policy? Ejection of British influence from Egypt was his first priority, leading to the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1955 and the Suez War of 1956. Nasser actively espoused the cause of the Palestinians, partly to arouse patriotism, and proceeded to lose two wars against Israel; in 1967 he had to give up the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. His army fought alongside the leftist faction in a Yemen civil war against the Saudi-backed rightists but gained nothing. Moreover, heavy dependence on Soviet aid tended to undermine his credibility as a self-proclaimed leader of the Non-Aligned Movement. His pan-Arabism was instrumental. He sought Arab unity and actively encouraged mass Nasserite organizations in other Arab countries—much to the dismay of their rulers, who had difficulty distinguishing pan-Arabism from an Egyptian search for regional hegemony. But the Charter of attribute the defeat in 1967 to Nasser's pan-Arab ambitions. More radical Arab nationalist leaders were emerging and threatening to wrest leadership of Arab nationalism from Nasser. Nasser's provocation of Israel was an attempt to restore his leadership, and he bet that the United States would save him as it did in 1956. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 411-15; Stephen Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 99-102.

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Iran and Egypt National Action argues that progressive revolutions in all Arab countries, following the Egyptian model, are inevitable even without active intervention, a hope disappointed by Nasser's defeat in Yemen and the dissolution of the UAR. The end of the union with Syria and defeat in the 1967 war with Israel contributed a great deal to the declining luster of pan-Arabism in Egyptian ideology and policy. Until his death in 197o, however, Nasser had hoped to use pan-Arabism to create collective, oil-based strength for the Arab states to compensate for their individual weakness. There is good evidence that support for this policy was widely accepted by the Egyptian populace and that strong hostility toward Israel was part of Egyptian national identity. Egyptian conscripts fought as well and as courageously as their poor leadership allowed. Sadat and Mubarak, after the Camp David peace agreement with Israel, always had difficulty reconciling their policy of rapprochement with the persistence of this attitude. Egypt's law defining nationality expresses the ambivalence between an emphasis on a narrow Egyptian identity as opposed to the larger Arab one. Any child of Egyptian parents is Egyptian, no matter where it is born or resides. Aliens and their children resident in Egypt may be naturalized provided they know Arabic. Descendants of aliens living in Egypt may be naturalized if they speak Arabic or are Muslims. Any alien may also become Egyptian if he or she has performed outstanding services to the state, to Arab nationalism, or to the Arab people. The Paucity of Learning in Nasserite Egypt Nasserite Egypt suffered from a chaotic administration. The bureaucracy was bloated with underemployed officials because of the state's guarantee of full employment to all university graduates. State enterprises were notorious for their inefficiency, redundancies, and inability to operate without huge losses. Professionals and technocrats were blocked from putting their expert knowledge to work by the stress the regime put on political loyalty and full employment. These conditions prevailed despite energetic measures on the part of the top leadership to improve matters and to root out general personal corruption. The state made little effort to collect taxes other than excises on imports and certain staples, though food was heavily subsidized. Did peaceful change prevail? The fact that there was little dissident activity during Nasser's lifetime is attributable to the brutal repression of opposition, particularly communist and Islamic. Nasser also purged the ranks of his fellow officers if he suspected intrigue against him. The succession passed peacefully and constitutionally to Anwar Sadat in 1970; but Sadat then felt he had to engage in extensive purges of the top leadership to ensure his own survival as president. 99

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Despite the emphasis on science and scientific analysis, there is no evidence that decision making in Nasser's Egypt followed analytical guidelines. Ideology and trial-and-error experimentation ruled the administrative roost. The neglect of expert scientific knowledge in favor of ideological and instrumental considerations is illustrated clearly in the case of water policy. The construction of the Aswan High Dam ignored many studies that questioned technical aspects of the scheme. Officials of the relevant administrative agencies did not express their reservations once they understood that the Free Officers had staked their reputation on the grandiosity and sweep of the scheme. Agrarian reform in the areas to be farmed by irrigation water derived from the dam was equally nonscientific. Conservative civilian technocrats, led by Sayyid Marei, favored the retention of privately owned land while maintaining centralized control over the project. The Free Officers, led by Ali Sabri, wanted state farms. They argued for that formula because they planned to set up shillas of their own for the management of those farms. Agrarian reform elsewhere, however, was less ideologized. Still, the regime was clearly legitimate in the eyes of the large majority of Egyptians because it worked hard, if sloppily, to better the lives of the poor and the middle class and because it claimed to serve the cause of the Arab nation. In 1951, 5.6 percent of the state budget went for public services; in 1976 that number was 19.3 percent. In 1964, 1.2 million persons were covered by the social security program; by 1975 the number was 4 million. That secular legitimacy was lost by Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak as a result of a massive Islamic revival that derationalized an Egypt that had just arrived at a fair degree of internal integration (see table 2-8). Despite the efforts to increase personal welfare, inequality in Egypt probably worsened during the Nasser period, which contributed to the process of derationalization that set in during the 1970s.42 NATIONAL MYTH: FROM INTEGRALISM TO REFORMIST SYNCRETISM Abandoning Nasserist Integralism Since the 1973 Israeli war, Egypt has given up state socialism, singleparty rule, unflinching secularism, and pan-Arabism; moreover, it has 42 Under Nasser's rule, the monthly minimum wage, in real terms, had declined. Sadat and Mubarak increased it four times, thus triggering repeated rioting when the IMFdecreed "reforms" resulted in cutbacks and losses of real worker income. In 1976 64.3 percent of government capital outlays for services went to education, thus making things worse under the IMF regime because of the sharp increase in the unemployment of intellectuals. Sadat had dramatically increased subsidies for food, housing, and transportation. In 1980 subsidies accounted for 58.2 percent of the government's budget. Hansen, Political Economy, tables 10.4, 10.5, 10.6.

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Iran and Egypt Table 2-8. Egypt: Extent of rationalization 188o 1920 1940 195o 1960 1975 1980 1990 N/A Political succession no National myth in education Religious institutions no Civil religion no no Cultural uniformity yes Language Income distribution Workers' organizations Farmers' organizations Payment of taxes Conscription Fighting wars Administrative cohesion Foreign policy Peaceful change Legitimacy Total (%)

N/A some some some some some some some no no yes yes yes no no no no no some some some yes some some some no yes yes yes yes

no no no some some some no no no yes yes yes yes yes yes

some no no yes no N/A no no no some some some some N/A N/A N/A N/A some some some some no no no no no no no no N/A N/A N/A yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes N/A N/A N/A yes yes yes yes some some no no no no yes yes some some some no yes N/A no yes some some no yes no N/A yes no no yes yes some some

yes

3o

42

32

40

66

59

53

5o

made peace with Israel. Also, it experienced increasing internal violence, the return of Islam as a major political force, and overall derationalization. Are these trends somehow connected? On becoming president, Anwar Sadat apparently decided that Nasserism was a complete failure. He learned to augment and reform his predecessor's thinking, to substitute a causality of his own in diagnosing Egypt's ills. He seems to have decided that the Soviet Union was unable to help Egypt either in solving its problems of inadequate economic development or in realizing the pan-Arab agenda. Hence, an American alliance was sought in order to persuade Israel to yield its conquests and to further economic development more effectively. Switching alliances not only required cutting the Soviet link but first called for a major effort to defeat Israel in order, later, to be able to make peace while claimIOI

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS ing to have won the war. The new agenda, of course, could not proclaim a pan-Arab or pan-Islamic emphasis because the United States would never support either one. Also, Sadat's reasoning, unlike Nasser's, subordinated foreign policy to spurring domestic economic growth and modernization. Egypt attacked Israel in October 1973, crossed the Suez Canal, penetrated a few miles into the Sinai, and thereafter suffered another crushing military defeat. The United States and the Soviet Union saved Sadat from the consequences of the defeat and made possible his eventual diplomatic triumph. Sadat emerged a hero; his early military successes sufficed to fool his subjects into believing that Egypt had won the war. The Camp David agreement, Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, and the Nobel Peace Prize made it appear that Sadat had reasoned correctly. Political liberalization was also on Sadat's agenda. Seeking support against the socialist Nasserites and the Marxists, he made an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood before purging the old integralist elite, abolishing the ASU, and, in 1976, authorizing the creation of new political parties. But since both Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, his successor in 1981, were quite unwilling to tolerate criticism and dissent, these new liberal practices were often interrupted, discouraged, and repressed. Militant Muslims, after being courted, were soon made the subjects of repression once more, though Sadat and Mubarak also made some significant concessions to Islamic practices. Sadat toyed with codifying the Shari'a, though he also promulgated a very secular marriage law. Nevertheless, he allowed the large-scale penetration of the Muslim Brethren into the many corporatist professional entities used by the regime.43 Economic reform to spur development was the regime's new main objective. Foreign investment was welcomed by the repeal of restrictions against foreign firms. Private entrepreneurship was encouraged. After 1976 the International Monetary Fund was called on to rescue Egypt from a huge foreign debt and insisted on curtailing subsidies, raising taxes, stopping inflationary practices, trimming the bureaucracy, and, eventually, privatizing the huge public sector. Mubarak presided over the implementation of these measures and, predictably, weakened the legitimacy Nasser's regime had enjoyed. " The Muslim Brotherhood was allowed representation in Parliament as long as it used the label of a legal party, not its own. In 1990 the Brotherhood boycotted the elections; in 1995 the police harassed its candidates so that none of the Brethren were elected. Nevertheless, there is now a human rights organization that seeks to monitor state conduct and publicize violations of citizens' rights. As the media were increasingly used by businessmen benefiting from the belated privatization of parastatals, the government cracked down on press freedom once again in 1997 because it is not yet at ease with a critical and articulate capitalist opposition that seeks to accelerate the sale of state properties. 102

Iran and Egypt

These changes contain a mixture of liberal and syncretist elements Nasserism had spurned in favor of a sloppy integralism. They, as Sadat's words indicate, include enough respect for Western reasoning to qualify as an ideology of reformist syncretism: The modern society and nation are not such insofar as their material manifestations alone are concerned, and their setting up is not completed once they have acquired modern commodities and products. Modernism is knowing the right order of priorities as to our requirements of those tools. Then we should set up the institutions, systems and relations capable of transforming these tools in Arab hands from hackneyed, inanimate tools into creative, productive ones. Next we should compose the suitable environment and necessary stage of development which will make us capable of invention and creativeness and consequently of a true contribution to civilization.'4 Political and Economic Liberalization?

Sadat was certainly serious in stressing domestic welfare over pan-Arab self-assertion. By 198o he had reduced defense outlays to 11.7 percent of the budget from 38.5 in 197o. But thanks to the IMF, outlays for education had shrunk to 8 percent, health to 2.4 percent, and social services to 10.1 percent from outlays two to three times higher in 197o. He granted the managers of state enterprises the power to act like private entrepreneurs in reducing production costs and seeking to export, while cutting expensive imports. Yet guaranteed employment—and hence overstaffing—was not curtailed until 1995. Nor was a commitment to sell off state enterprises taken seriously until then. Until 1995 Mubarak had merely moved Egypt from an ineffective state socialism to, as John Waterbury suggests, an equally flawed state capitalism. The Egyptian economy did not improve, nor did the lot of most Egyptians, despite the inflow of $26 billion in foreign aid between 198o and 1991. One reason for the stagnation was the power of the increasingly independent trade union movement. Organized workers, though still subject to some state control, exerted themselves successfully in resisting the privatization of state enterprises by acquiring the right to participate actively in economic policy making. Still, when wildcat strikes occurred, Mubarak used the army to repress them. One consequence of economic failure has been that 2.2 million Egyptians were forced to seek work in Libya and the Persian Gulf countries by 198o, and they contributed 10 percent of Egypt's GDP. Some of the increases in income enjoyed by urban 44 R. W. Baker, Egypt's Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), P. 47.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Egyptians during the 198os are due to these earnings. Of genuine learning there is nary a trace as policy continues to be made by means of marginal adaptations, often forced on Egypt by the international community. By 1995 unemployment was estimated by some at 12 percent, but others thought it had climbed to 20 percent of the workforce. Even though poverty and stagnation are the order of the day, the rigors of Nasserite state corporatism have been relaxed appreciably in favor of a measure of political liberalization. Even though periods of decompression have always been succeeded by years of renewed authoritarian repression, at no time has the polity approached the consistent totalitarianism of Nasser. Liberalization began in 1971 with restoration of parliamentary elections (albeit for a single party), a measure of press freedom, and reduced police arbitrariness. The outbreak of student riots caused Sadat to crack down, but he decompressed once more in 1974 by splitting the ASU into three "official parties" and creating autonomous local governments. In 1977 unofficial parties were allowed to organize and publish without censorship despite left-wing and worker opposition. By 1978 the parties that had criticized Sadat were once more persecuted. Plebiscites were used thereafter to circumvent parliaments slow to do the president's bidding. On assuming office, Mubarak liberalized once more, but he, too, periodically resorted to repression when criticized or blocked by now autonomous political formations, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Parties, in principle, are prohibited from appealing to class, racial, sectarian, or geographic sources of support. They are subject to dissolution by bureaucratic decree. Sadat founded a new "official" party, the National Democrats (NDP), dedicated to the "building of a modern state founded in science and faith; the affirmation of spiritual values; the reconciliation of individual and collective interests; the affirmation of national unity and social peace; striving for Arab unity; the Shari'a as the principal source of law."45 The NDP won every parliamentary election without difficulty. Something resembling an independent judiciary has existed since the late 197os. Even though individuals can now sue the state, the process is so cumbersome that few actually do. Nor do the courts issue many judgments. There is very little civil rights litigation, though the courts did annul one electoral law that had loaded the dice in favor of the NDP. Possibly, freedom of association has been advanced by the courts. Conversely, the Law of Shame (198o) created special ethics courts to try crimes of morals, such as repudiating religious or national values or undermining the dignity of the state. 45

Waterbury, Egypt of Nasser and Sadat, p. 37o. 104

Iran and Egypt Has there been learning to practice liberal politics? More than seventy prominent Egyptians signed the following statement in 198o, which remains valid today: We can claim in all honesty that the style in which Egypt is governed today is not based on any specific form of government. While it is not an outright dictatorship, Nazism, or fascism, neither is it a democracy or even a pseudodemocracy. It has become pointless to discuss any decision, whether it is to support or criticize it, for no sooner is a random decision taken in one direction than it is replaced by another in a different direction.46 This characterization remains telling twenty years later. On the one hand, Mubarak's regime allowed the formation of a new reformist-Islamic party, though official recognition was withheld. That party, Wasat, advocates electoral democracy, equality of women, and private capitalism unfettered by the state. It relies on the umma of believers to organize most public activities. On the other hand, severe repression of fundamentalists, while limiting their impact, was acheived by imprisoning twenty thousand of them. In 1999 legislation was enacted putting all private groups under government control once more. Unlike the old ASU, the state merely claims the right to monitor these groups, not actually run them. All the repressive legislation allowing torture and arbitrary jailing remains in force, though it is used more sparingly than before. Criticism of the government and its leaders is tolerated only if it remains very muted. Between Traditional and Restorative Syncretism: The Return of Religion Anwar Sadat, who downplayed Arab Socialism, called himself the "believer-president" as he made the effort to downplay secularism as well. The act did not last long and, in the end, cost him his life. But the measures involved added up to pushing Egypt away from integralism, toward reformist-syncretist nationalism. The political influence of Islam in today's Egypt is exercised by two very different strands of opinion, each with its own organizations. One espouses a traditional-syncretist nationalism, the other a restorative creed. The first is represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, now allied with the ulama of al-Azhar, which has withstood wave after wave of persecution. It has abandoned its original commitment to a populist form of restorative syncretism. Several small organizations of militants, one terrorist (the Gamaa Islamiya) and the other preoccupied with the penetration of the army and bureaucracy, stand for an unflinching restorative view. 46

Ibid, p. 372. 105

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Al-Azhar, since the death of Nasser, has undergone a process of modernization in outlook and a broadening of its theological base. Its influence has grown in proportion. It now supervises a nationwide network of Islamic schools. The Muslim Brotherhood has become a major social service agency for the uprooted and marginal people who live in the shantytowns outside the major cities. It has also successfully penetrated most Egyptian professional associations. Its main membership, however, is drawn from _middle-class professionals who have reembraced orthodox Islam after growing rich in the Persian Gulf. It has endorsed elections and parliamentary government. At the same time, the Brotherhood has abandoned its earlier aim, to overthrow the impious nation-state. That, however, is exactly the objective of the militant Islamists. First successful in winning student elections and thus eliminating Marxist and Nasserite influence in universities, some militants later penetrated the army as well. By and large their membership comes from the unemployed of the shantytowns and from young people unable to find employment they consider commensurate with their skills and education. The membership is the archetypical group of mobilized but differentiated. By contrast, successful professionals tend to vote for the New Wafd Party. These professionals are the quintessential mobilized/assimilated, as are many of the Muslim Brethren. Both are increasingly comfortable with the contours of a nation-state that has made concessions to Islam, as Mubarak has. One result of this rebirth of orthodoxy is the impressive network of charitable and social service agencies financed and administered by private Islamic groups. They cater to those who suffer most from modernization. This clientele is also the most receptive to the message of the radical Islamists who want to smash the impious state, a message couched in the vernacular Egyptian dialect and not in the formal Arabic of the educated classes and the Quran. Militant Islam is populist as well as restorative. Traditional syncretism is clearly expressed in the new program of the Muslim Brotherhood. Abu al-Nasr, its leader, declared in 1987 that the Brotherhood is proud of its Egyptian identity, that the current problems of the country are mainly spiritual, and that a return to orthodox Islam will solve them. Hence the Brotherhood ought to be permitted to work unimpeded by peaceful means for the restoration of the Shari'a as the source of all public policy. The militants see the nation-state as the handmaiden of the evil that, they believe, has befallen Islamic society, views that are condemned as heterodox by the ulama. The state has allowed the influx of too much Western culture, money, and ideas. Many believe jihad has to be practiced by Egyptian against Egyptian in order to purify the polity. All contemporary nominally Muslim rulers are in reality apostates who must be killed. ro6

Iran and Egypt

Benevolent societies and Sufism are quietistic, hence incompatible with Quranic injunctions. So are militant utopians who seek to leave the nation. How have these trends pushed the Egyptian national myth in the direction of a reformist syncretism? The mixture of institutions now prevalent remains secular in its intent, but the religious features tolerated throughout conform to the beliefs of traditional syncretists. The doctrines of restorationism are totally rejected by the ruling secular and religious groups, though they continue to have much underground support. Thus, a modernized al-Azhar has more influence today in education than it has had since the days of the British protectorate. On the defensive under the Wafd and Nasser, it speaks now with self-confidence on the social and cultural issues of the day. In some Islamic schools the symbols of secular nationalism are even banned as impious. Whether the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic institutions are legalized or not, their influence has steadily grown. Though the state still seeks to use the law to prevent these groups from asserting an overt political role, the allpervasive presence of Islamic symbols and themes makes the enforcement of such rules all but impossible. And the Mubarak government has permitted al-Azhar to censor art and literature on its behalf, thus tacitly endorsing campaigns against westernization, sexual offenses especially among women, and high-level corruption. Relations with the Copts illustfate the force of rebounding religion and also underscore the lack of consensus on the position of religious minorities in Egyptian life. Copts organized to oppose Sadat's first rapprochement with Islam, fearing future submission to Shari'a law and demanding full legal autonomy. This set the scene for years of active intervention by the state in the running of the Coptic Church. In addition, the official encouragement of Islam included license for Muslim mobs to attack Copts and prevent the building of churches. Eventually, al-Azhar demanded, and the government acquiesced in, the passing of a law punishing apostasy by death, which triggered rioting by the Copts and anti-Coptic violence by Muslims. The Muslim religious revival has made Egyptian foreign policy much less consensual than it had been under Nasser. Traditional as well as restorative syncretists opposed peace with Israel. Sadat lost his life because the Camp David agreement was seen as a betrayal of pan-Islamic and pan-Arab aspirations by the antistate fundamentalists. Egyptian participation in the United Nations campaign against Iraq caused much soul-searching among believers. Some thought it proper to direct a jihad against the impious Saddam Hussein, but others considered the Saudi regime even more impious, and still others could not stomach any alliance with the West. Mubarak's reserve with respect to continuing multi107

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

lateral negotiations over all issues concerning Middle Eastern peace is an expression of his desire not to repeat Sadat's mistake in appearing to sell out pan-Arabism. Thus he resists Egypt's adherence to measures designed to halt nuclear proliferation as long as Israel adheres to its nuclear option, and he practices cooperation with Libya. Yet there are limits to what the government will accept. Sadat, just before his death, backtracked by declaring that there could be "no religion in politics and no politics in religion" as he took new repressive measures against the Copts. Mubarak in 1993 gave indications that he will compromise no longer with the traditional syncretists. He again stripped them of their power of censorship over publications, film, and television and encouraged a new emphasis on Western secular themes. And Mubarak can claim that his secular bias has paid off in the cancellation of the bulk of Egypt's foreign debt and the increase in foreign economic aid. Moreover, he continues to enjoy the support of the very large secularized middle class that coexists with its newly pious neighbors. The Decline of Rationalization In 1919 the Wafd rebelled in order to eject British rule but also to emulate British values and institutions. It acted out our Type B. In 1952 the Free Officers rebelled to complete the defeat of imperialism and the triumph of secular modernization by turning to the Soviet model. By the end of the century, however, the unofficial institutions and actual beliefs of Egyptians bear the imprint of Islaln more than they reflect either secular model. Egyptians are not universally committed to peaceful change as the sole mode of political action. The legitimacy of jihad in the eyes of many allows the use of violence and civil strife. Neither do the legislative and judicial institutions allow the regular practice of peaceful change. Certainly the predictable reliance on repression to deal with dissent does not encourage faith in peaceful change. The legitimacy of the regime has declined since the days of Nasser. Muslims as well as secularists, Marxist and liberal, lack enthusiasm for the institutions and practices of the government, if they do not actively oppose them. Mubarak and the army rule by seeking to satisfy the demands of all groups that do not actively oppose the state and by destroying the ones that do. One does not wield legitimate authority and rationalize a country by these means alone. Egypt's national myth has no firm basis in public opinion because the persistent division among Muslims, Copts, and secularists makes impossible the evolution of a civil religion. Few challenged Nasser's integralism, but as soon as repression was relaxed new fissures in dominant values o8

Iran and Egypt

became apparent. The official insistence on the unbroken tradition of Mother Egypt's many civilizations, from pharaonic to modern-secular, still encounters challenges from Islam and from pan-Arabism. Sadat, in 1974, could articulate the problem but find no solution for it: The real challenge confronting peoples with deep-rooted origins who are facing the problem of civilizational progress is precisely how to renovate their civilization. They should not reject the past in the name of the present, and should not renounce the modern in the name of the past, but they should take the new without losing sight of their origins.47

The result is the present volatile reformist syncretism, which seems to satisfy very few. Learning of the kind that Sadat practiced in the early and mid-197os is impossible under these circumstances. Ideologically triggered change is no longer practicable. Only adaptations that resemble a drunk's lurching from side to side can be effected. 47

Baker, Egypt's Uncertain Revolution, p. 47.

109

CHAPTER THREE

India

BRITAIN CREATES THE MODERN INDIAN STATE In 1877 Queen Victoria became empress of India; that act provided the symbolic seal of total control by London over the subcontinent. It was the first time in history that the entities we now call India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh were subject to a single government. No prior Indian empire, whether Hindu, Muslim, or Buddhist, had encompassed the whole area in which the imperial power built a modern state. Nor was there an Indian nationalism until early in the twentieth century, when the articulate among the colonized formed a set of diverse attitudes toward that state which gave it a distinct "Indian" political identity. Britain inadvertently created the Indian nation-state. The Indian path toward nation-statehood follows our Type B, the pattern common to colonized societies simultaneously imitating their masters and rebelling against them. India, etched by both Hindu- and Muslim-inspired elite cultures, underwent social mobilization triggered by British colonial policies. That process produced several competing and ideologically ambivalent groups. Some sought assimilation into British ways but were rebuffed; others rejected assimilation and sought to revive precolonial values and institutions; still others sought compromises between tradition and modernity. By the 192os all wanted independence, This chapter could not have been written without the devoted research assistance and critical acumen of Joseph Alter and Arun Swamy. My friends Jyotirindra Das Gupta and Mary Katzenstein saved me from many blunders with their conscientious reading of the manuscript. The remaining mistakes are mine alone. I thank the University of California's Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation for research funds. I IO

India

but they could not then and do not now agree on the values and institutions to accompany that independence. India's rationalization remains in doubt. Pakistan is even less well integrated. That country's attainment of independence follows our Type D; it never achieved rationalized nationstatehood. A mobilized Muslim elite was denied full assimilation by Britain and feared continued discrimination as a minority in a Hindudominated state. It seceded from India in order to safeguard its culture, but the members of the elite disagreed then and disagree now as to the content and meaning of that Muslim culture. Their political secession was not accompanied by a nationalist consensus, by a conception of a common identity. The internal conflict between modernity and tradition continues. British liberal values and institutions played a very significant role in shaping modern India; their role in defining a Pakistani identity is barely noticeable. Today both are nuclear powers deeply enmeshed in global politics and economics.' Are their respective relations with the rest of the world to be shaped by these divergent paths to material modernity? My interpretation of events is sharply contested by many Indians who are students of their own march toward nation-statehood. They stress the sway of the ancient Indic cultural tradition that had spread over South Asia three millennia ago, the culture they label Bharat, called the "Brahminical tradition" by A. T. Embree.2 That culture is seen as providing the primordial glue that has always held South Asia together and still does. I The material progress of India and Pakistan since independence is undeniable. Here are the statistics:

Population (millions) Infant mortality (per 1,000 live births) Births (per 1,000) Life expectancy (years) GNP per capita (US $) Illiteracy (% of population over 16) Engineers, scientists (% of labor force)

1950

1995

1995

India

India

Pakistan

350 146 40 32 6o 82 N/A

973 68 26 62 340 48 0.96

130 90

38

6o 460 62 1.48

SOURCE: New York Times, as compiled from World Bank and Indian and Pakistani government sources. 2 See A. T. Embree, "Indian Civilization and Regional Cultures: The Two Realities," and L. I. Rudolph and S. H. Rudolph, "The Subcontinental Empire and the Regional Kingdom in Indian State Formation," in Paul Wallace, ed., Region and Nation in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press and IBH Publishing Co.,1985), pp. 19-39, 40-60. The case for the primordial character of Indian nationalism is made by Dawa Norbu, "The Cultural Foundations of Indian Nationalism," in S. B. Chalu-abarthi, ed., Social Science, Social Concern (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1988), pp. 325-45. The opposite case is presented by Judith Brown, Modern India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 280-82.

III

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Advocates of this view dispute the legitimacy of Pakistan's secession, deny the importance of regional cultural variety on the subcontinent, and challenge liberal-secular notions of Indian identity. India is the heir of the Brahminical tradition, not the child of Britain. In fact, the Brahminical culture has always had to coexist with highly developed regional cultures that interpreted their Hinduism in diverse ways. In my judgment, the sweep and power of that tradition had no more significance in defining the shape of modern states than did the existence of a Catholic civilization in western Europe, an Orthodox one in eastern Europe, and an Islamic cultural realm in North Africa and the Middle East after 70o A.D. None of these religious traditions produced states coterminous with the claims of the associated faiths. Moreover, as is shown later, it is becoming increasingly clear that contemporary political voices using the notion of Hindu Rashtra are enlisting religio-cultural symbolism to legitimate a largely secular-modernist program.3 Even though vestiges of the Brahminical tradition are certainly with us, they seem to pale in importance when compared with the influence of Britain as seen through the prism of the Bharatiya Janata Party's values and behavior. Indian Tradition and British Modernity Britain acquired India, piece by piece, largely in the service of making money and acquiring the wherewithal to wage war elsewhere—in short, in conformity with mercantilist doctrines of statecraft. When these fell into disfavor in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the hands-off attitude toward Indian society which earlier British administrators adopted also changed. Initially, Britain was content to collect taxes and make India safe for British business. By the 184os a commitment to the diffusion of British values and institutions to the subcontinent was becoming evident, first manifested in the creation of European-style institutions of higher learning and the intensification of Christian missionary See Bharat Wariavwalla, "Demolition and the Nation-State Problematic," Comparativ 4, no. 6 (1994): 78-92. The term Hindu Rasthra "could mean a nation in the modern sense, but it could also mean a cultural entity, a sacred land, a religious community, and it has been used in all these senses by various nationalist writers in India at various times" (ibid., p. 82). A school of Marxist writers disputes that any authentic nationalist movement ever prevailed in India. T. V. Satyamurthi, Nationalism in the Contemporary World (London: Frances Pinter, 1983), argues that my Type B is the only "real" path to nation-statehood in the Third World, provided the nationalist movement is led by peasants and workers, which was not the case in India. G. Aloysius, Nationalism without a Nation in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), argues that the Congress was misled by Gandhi and others into adopting a procapitalist "hegemonial" nationalism that prevented a peasant-based true nationalism from arising. 112

India

activity, partly in response to the demands of some Indians impressed with Western thought. As T. B. Macaulay put it, the idea was to create a class of people who are "Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect." Education was also to play a role in weakening caste and the social dominance of Brahmins. Equally important for the later development of an Indian sense of identity, British scholars and judges systematized customary Hindu law and infused it with Western ideas. At the same time, the infrastructure of modern transportation and communications was being introduced. British democratic institutions, though far from fully developed at home, were slowly being introduced as well. Between 1861 and 1935 Britain allowed competitive elections to provincial legislatures with restricted legislative powers; eventually, fuller powers were ceded which led to responsible provincial government by 1935. Since the end of the nineteenth century, educated Indians had taken to voluntary organizations that routinely petitioned the imperial rulers. Legal procedures and legal reasoning were cultivated by Westernized Indians, as was the beginning of empirical social science research. These skills and attitudes, however, did not result in the creation of self-governing parliamentary rule at the center until 1947. An advisory central legislative council with sharply restricted powers emerged from the 1935 reforms. The diffusion of democratic institutions, slow as it was, determined the eventual withdrawal of Britain from India because it made possible the evolution of a modern political opposition that challenged the legitimacy of British overlordship in the idiom of British democracy. When did Britain decide to relinquish control? A Britain sorely tried by World War I promised in 1917 "the gradual development of selfgoverning institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British empire."4 Yet London remained unwilling to promise independence in 1935, despite fifteen years of rapidly growing nationalist agitation. Only the commitments of World War II persuaded London that holding on to India by force was impossible; by 1942 the government promised that Britain would withdraw from India after the war was over. By that time the electoral system of separate and reserved seats for Muslims, first introduced in 1906, had reinforced the evolution of a Muslim political class with its own secessionist nationalism. 4 E. S. Montagu, secretary of state for India, in preparing the ground for the MontaguChelmsford reforms of 1919, quoted in Paul Knaplund, The British Empire (New York: Harper, 1941), p. 762. For evidence of commercial development before the end of the nineteenth century, see C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, in The New Cambridge History of India, VOL 2, pt. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

I 13

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Cultural Diversity and Perceived Deprivation in Pre-Independence India Pre-independence India, despite spurts of commercial and cottagetype manufacturing development in the eighteenth century, as well as the creation of some modern manufacturing after 1918, remained overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, riven by the complexities and the barriers to social communication of the caste system. Much of social life was dominated by rituals and conventions, many with sharply inegalitarian implications. The cultural dominance claimed by Brahmins was challenged in some places. Low-caste persons and Untouchables acquired a separate identity in many localities. Caste associations grew up in defense of the commercial and ritual interests of similarly situated marriage circles (jatis); organized anti-Brahmin movements developed in the South. Muslim society in North India increasingly separated itself from Hindu in religious matters. Competition among religiously defined groups also arose with respect to commercial and agricultural pursuits, and especially with respect to education and access to the coveted civil service positions that were considered the ticket to upward mobility by most of the Western educated. There existed overarching cultural themes in Hindu and Muslim art, music, and literature. But they failed to provide truly consensual all-India elite cultures sufficient to form a single (or two separate) political identities. In some provinces, movements for the creation, or re-creation, of indigenous language and religious institutions challenged the idea of a single all-enveloping Indian culture; in other provinces, the cultural renaissance asserted the need to create and strengthen distinct all-Indian cultures, Hindu and Muslim. Western thought and institutions served as a consensual reference point, either to be emulated or to be combated. Still, fighting the British and their institutions evoked sharply competing images of identity: Muslim against Hindu against Sikh, Sanskritic languages against Dravidian ones, Hindi against Urdu, Bengali, and Marathi and other provincial tongues, or a provincial-linguistic identity against a religiously defined one. Hindu-Muslim conflict was exacerbated in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) as soon as separate electorates were introduced. There simply was no single Indian high culture sufficiently consensual to define a putative national myth.5 Nevertheless, the combination of Western education and the exposure to larger economic forces brought about some all-Indian solidarity by the turn of the century. The number of Christians rose to almost four million All material on social mobilization, language, and the work of the early Congress relies on Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1845-1947 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989); Brown, Modern India; and R. J. Moore, Liberalism and Indian Politics, 1872-1922 (New York: Norton, 1966). I 14

India

in 1911 from just under two million in 1881. About 2,000 people attended Western-style colleges in 187o; by 1892 the number was about 13,000. By 1917, 3o percent of the boys and 6.7 percent of the girls of school age were enrolled in primary schools. Literacy among males had risen to 13 percent in 1921; for women, it was a mere i.8 percent. Muslims perceived themselves as victims of educational discrimination in Bengal and Punjab by 1917. In all parts of the country these higher educational opportunities were sought primarily by members of what we might call the upper middle class, irrespective of caste and affiliation; they, clearly, were being socially mobilized first and most intensively.6 Among religious Hindus a powerful "revival" or "reform" movement developed by the middle of the nineteenth century, gathering strength in the twentieth. Syncretist thought dominated it. The idea was to combat wholesale Westernization and secularization, of the kind Congress at first espoused to the exclusion of other themes. But this movement was far from simply backward-looking. It "also harbored democratic, ethical and solidarity-making tendencies."7 Thus, the movement acted as a mobilizing bridge between apprehensive elites and awakening lower and middle urban groups. The revival was largely the work of two associations: the Brahmo Samaj, which advocated a monotheistic-rationalistic reinterpretation of Hinduism away from folk religion in order to combat the ideological challenge of Christian missions; and the Arya Samaj, which sought to combine a more mystical monotheism with the canonization of the Vedas and with the advocacy of egalitarian social reform. Both movements inspired the work of Vivekananda after the turn of the century, who in turn influenced many in the national leadership of Congress. Without itself espousing a political nationalism, the Arya Samaj provided the rhetoric and the symbolism for what later became Hindu traditional- and restorativesyncretist nationalisms. Moreover, the Arya Samaj had the result of sharpening the differences among Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus, particularly in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Before the revival movement—and its On class structure and conflict, discrimination, education, and Swadeshi, see Sarkar, Modern India, and Brown, Modern India. After 1879 the British proportion of army officers increased from 14 to 33 percent, with artillery units entirely reserved to Britons; the pay for British enlisted personnel was two-and-a-half times higher than for Indian. In 1887 almost 300,000 people were studying English, 507,000 by 1907. The circulation of Englishlanguage newspapers was 90,000 in 1885, 276,000 in 1905. The number of matriculations from Western schools was 50,000 per year in the 188os. Despite these developments, the urban population was still only about 1 o percent in 1921. " John R. McLane, as quoted in Richard Sisson and Stanley Wolpert, eds., Congress and Indian Nationalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 58. For details about the political impact of the Hindu reform movements, see K. W. Jones, Arya Dharam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). I 15

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

imitation by Muslim reformer S. A. Khan, who wanted to "update" Islam in order to enable it to compete with both revived Hinduism and secularism—the border between these cultural communities was much more fluid than it became after the turn of the century. As in so many other areas, it was Britain that triggered these changes by following policies that pitted modernizers against traditionalists; Britain unintentionally mobilized both for action and advocacy that eventually resulted in the demise of British rule. Thus, Britain surely dug its own grave in the subcontinent. The resentments of mobilized people who respected and even admired Western ways, but who were the victims of systematic discrimination, found early expression in the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885. The Congress was initially made up largely of Western-educated professional and commercial elites who wanted a bigger share of the civil service jobs, army commissions, and commercial opportunities than Britain allowed. It asked for relatively modest reforms to lessen discrimination; self-government and democracy were not advocated before 1904. Some Congress members then wished to assimilate to Western ways; others wanted to combat the West more effectively. But all their demands were designed to overcome British resistance to admitting them to equality. In 1905 Britain divided Bengal into Hindu- and Muslim-majority parts, an act so deeply and widely resented as to result in a mass movement to boycott purchases of imported cloth, partly to stimulate the local manufacture of textiles. British reprisal action broadened the protests into a boycott of schools. Although extremely effective in Bengal, it spread to other provinces to a lesser degree. The entire movement clearly became an organized protest in favor of local economic growth by way of protected manufacturing industries. Because the rate of social mobilization—the production of potential candidates for assimilation—raced far ahead of British political and economic reforms, Congress's agitation had considerable success before 1914. The decisive events that made Congress the core of the independence movement were connected with World War I and its aftermath. Because of India's importance to Britain as a source of military manpower, Indian self-esteem was enhanced; masses of traditional and lower-caste/class people were brought into the Congress movement. The largely nonviolent campaigns for swaraj (democratic self-government), launched on a mass basis by Mohandas Gandhi after 192o, were made possible by wartime mobilization as well as by the outrage over violent British repression of discontent. The fact remains, however, that no shared vision of India freed from British rule could develop. Congress was the forum in which competing images of a postcolonial India con116

India

fronted one another, without any single one ever winning a decisive victory before independence. Competing Views of the Nation(s) Mohandas Gandhi built the Indian National Congress as a mass-based organization after 192o. It became a powerful engine for the social mobilization of lower-caste and rural Indians because it was devoted to social reforms as much as to self-government. The fact that the Congress espoused liberal parliamentarism as its political objective, however, by no means implied that among its followers there was a consensus favoring liberal nationalism. In fact, much as in the Britain of 1688, liberalism flourished only because it alone could provide the institutional and doctrinal compromise among otherwise irreconcilable visions of a future Indian nation. A permanent reconciliation would have required a willingness among followers of religious nationalism to live in harmony with Marxists as well as fascists, while permitting the prominent secular-liberal leadership to freeze the future institutional patterns into a parliamentarydemocratic mold. We now discuss the range of nationalist visions that eventually compromised—temporarily—though entailing the separation of the Muslim community into a distinct nation, untold death and suffering, and the martyrdom of Gandhi.8 This section is devoted to sketching the ideological diversity of Congress; the next deals with Muslim movements and the evolution of the Muslim League.9 Liberal nationalism. The core spokesmen for Indian liberalism after 1900 were G. K. Gokhale, Motilal Nehru, and his son Jawaharlal. Until 1923 Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a prominent Congress liberal, and other important Muslim leaders (Wazir Hasan, Mujibur Rahman) remained 8 Paradoxically, the two icons of nationalist ideology in India and Pakistan, Mohandas Gandhi and Muhammad Iqbal, respectively, were probably not nationalists at all. Gandhi's ideological commitments were to a cosmopolitan reform of humankind and human society, inspired by what he called "truth," an amalgam of Christianity, philosophical anarchism, Hinduism, and theosophy; it stressed rural self-reliance, nonviolence, and antiindustrialism, not national identity. He appeared to consider India merely a site where progress was possible and embraced independence for instrumental rather than ultimate purposes. His utopia sought to restore nothing traditional and hence was not even syncretist in my sense; his emphasis on self-discipline and on service was modern and individualistic. Iqbal professed indifference to the idea of a Muslim state in India; he sought to combine Marxist universalism with an updated and reformed pan-Islamism. 9 This section is based entirely on Paul Brass, Language, Religion, and Politics in North India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Richard Gordon, Bengal: The Nationalist Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974); Eugene Irschick, Politics and Social Conflict in South India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); G. Johnson, Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973); David Kopf, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); Gail Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in Colonial Society (Bombay: Scientific Socialist Education Trust, 1976).

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such until they joined the Muslim League in 1937. Gokhale favored a Whig version of liberalism, but J. Nehru was a democratic socialist whose Congress supporters remained resolutely opposed to any communalism, special group representation, or official recognition of religions. After 193o the liberals were supported by urban professional and commercial groups, which concentrated on democratic constitutional reforms and widening the franchise and eventually agreed to the use of mass, nonviolent civil disobedience (satyagraha) as the means to dislodge the British. Their aim, of course, was the creation of a modern, industrial, democratic, secular state. Integral nationalism. Marxist revolutionary nationalism remained weak during the colonial period, though it took off after independence. Fascist integralists were more numerous and more influential, especially because of their preponderance in Bengal during and after the Swadeshi movement. The movement was led by the respected nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose, who discredited himself only after he joined the Japanese in 1942. His party aped European fascists with paramilitary youth organizations, cultivation of martial virtues, and the use of terrorism. Bose enjoyed widespread appeal because he mixed socialist with Hindu symbolic themes. He sought to subsume existing Bengali Hindu cults while allying with Marxists and the strong Bengali strain of traditional-syncretist antiWesternism espoused by R. Tagore and Aurobindo Ghose. The Bengali integralists never attracted Muslim or mainstream Congress support. Syncretist nationalism. Syncretists of various kinds were and remained far more significant enemies of liberalism than integralists. The political dean of Congress syncretists was B. G. Tilak; his political base was in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, where nationalist politics was expressed and merged with Parvati temple ceremonies and the celebration of the god Ganapati.i° In Bengal the traditional syncretists were represented by many supporters of Swadeshi, including R. Tagore, S. Banerji, and R. C. Dutt. Some identified with the monotheist reformism of the Brahmo Samaj and Vivekananda; others exalted the goddess Shakti and recently rediscovered heroic aspects of Bengal history. Many favored mass education and mass literacy, as well as some social reforms, while object" Tilak used the Ganapati festival to find an audience for his non-Brahmin message. He made Shivaji a symbol of Hindu martial values and of pan-caste alliances, at the same time catering to Brahmins by means of Shivaji's ties to Bakhti sainthood, despite that hero's Kshatriya origin. (Shivaji was the founder of the seventeenth-century anti-Mughal Maratha Confederacy. Tilak took the material from a work by Ranade, published in the 186os, which sought to prove that Maharashtra was a true nation in the seventeenth century, thus challenging the British argument about India's fragmentation.) Tilak's use of Shivaji was taken over by Bal Thackeray, head of the modern Shiv Sena of Maharashtra, a proto-totalitarian organization dedicated to Hindu purity, martial virtues for fighting Muslims, and a unilingual Maharashtra. The RSS, a national Hindu revivalist organization, is another modern descendant of Tilak's ideology. 118

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ing to Western values and remaining indifferent or opposed to democracy. Some reformist syncretists professed greater tolerance of Western values and Western institutions than did Tilak. Some of those who emerged from the educational activities of the Arya Samaj, though they were committed to the restoration of Hindu practice to Vedic purity, also campaigned for anti-Brahmin egalitarian social reforms and the blending of Hindu with Western education; India as a whole was a positive symbol for the Arya Samaj, rather than the provincial preoccupations of many other syncretist nationalists. An even more secular emphasis was displayed by the Swaraj Party and by C. R. Das, its leader, as he sought to lead Bengalis away from the anticolonial communalism of Swadeshi. In Tamil Nadu the long-dominant Justice Party took a liberal stance tinged with syncretism in its espousal of both democratic parliamentarism and antiBrahmin, anti-Sanskritic Dravidic communalism. Muslim nationalisms. Muslims participated, at least until the early 193os, in the Congress, though they chafed in periods of Hindu syncretist-tinged leadership." Yet their own ranks included the same range of nationalist ideologies as found among their Hindu neighbors. The Deoband movement illustrates the restorative-syncretist strain; its leaders, through the building of schools, created a network of activists who wanted to reassert traditional Islamic values that rejected both the West and Hindu culture. The Deoband network of teachers and scholars were to find an important mobilizing role among North Indian Muslims through the Khilafat movement, a mass-based effort to assert a Muslim identity (after 1916) in the face of British attacks on the Ottoman empire and the person of its sultan, the symbolic head of all Islam. In subsequent decades the Deobandis contributed significantly to restorative Muslim nationalism in North India and Pakistan (though they did not break with the Congress until the 1940s). Reformist-syncretist ideas were expressed by the "Young Gentlemen of Uttar Pradesh," a movement of Muslim Westernized professionals anxious to protect their routes to upward mobility in public life. They were often graduates of what eventually became Aligarh University, a Muslim institution founded by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in 1875 to advance the adaptation of Islam to modern life by merging progressive Islamic with British ideas. Strong in U.P. and Bihar and identified with the Muslim League before 1916, these nationalists worked for the greater use of the Urdu language and the self-conscious assertion of modern Muslim " This section draws on Aziz Ahmad, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan (London: Oxford University Press, 1967); Mushirul Hasan, Nationalism and Communal Politics in India (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1979); Francis Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); and MoM Shakir, Khilafat to Partition (New Delhi: Kalamkar Prakshan, 1970).

"9

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values, and they advocated separate electorates as well as reserved seats in all legislative bodies at all levels. Nevertheless, after independence Aligarh graduates contributed greatly to all-Indian intellectual and artistic achievements of a nonsectarian kind. Their appeal remained confined to areas in which Muslims were a minority; in Bengal the Muslim League did less well because Muslims were in the majority and were mostly poor peasants rather than professionals and landowners, as in U.P. and Punjab. There were also secular Muslim nationalists, such as Abul Kalam Azad, who began as a reformist syncretist but became an important leader in the Congress after 192o, advocating a state in which Indians of all religions could live in peace. The Father of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, began his political life as an uncompromising secularist who wanted parliamentary democracy and the separation of religion from politics. It is still unclear why he later downplayed his secularism and embraced secession after Congress rejected his demand for communal representation and separate electorates.

Why Was There Such Ideological Diversity in Colonial India? A number of things must be known before we can answer this question. Who was mobilized when? Who sought assimilation but was rebuffed? Who had grievances that became part of the anticolonial movement even though they did not originate in response to British rule? The first to experience rejection were those who had received education in English-language institutions, typically clerks and schoolteachers but also a significant minority of professionals and civil servants. Mostly, they were Brahmins or drawn from other traditionally literate groups; usually, they held modest interests in land, such as secure rights as superior tenants to zamindars. For this group, both accustomed to a place of honor in traditional society and seeking upward mobility from modest financial circumstances, the systematic racial discrimination Britain practiced in employment, the law, and the army was a source of resentment and frustration. The leading elements—the "upper-middle-class" professionals and civil servants who had often attended university in England— were the first to join Congress. Their demand was for equality in access to the rewards of the Western elite culture. They claimed to speak for, and in some instances did speak for, the "lower-middle-class" clerical stratum as well. "Lower-middle-class" groups were also attracted to movements that were more concerned with asserting the local elite culture as the equal of 120

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the Western. These efforts were focused on the revival, invention, or reinvention of regional languages and literatures, regional religious cults, and the high religious traditions of both Hinduism and Islam. Such movements, which were also at times joined by the more privileged Western-educated stratum, drew on a variety of other elements: traditionally literate groups whose principal medium of expression remained regional vernaculars or, in the case of Muslims, Urdu-Persian; upwardly mobile cultivators in areas such as Andhra where the dominant land-controlling stratum was a relatively independent peasantry; and at times traditional elites suffering from relative deprivation or status insecurities. Among Hindus these movements included religiously tinged terrorist groups in Bengal, demands for a separate province in Andhra, and attempts in Punjab to combine Hindu revivalism with social reform and the promotion of indigenous industrial enterprises. A movement to rally support for Hindu orthodoxy around a demand to ban the slaughter of cows was launched by high-status North Indian Hindus who sought to counter the threat posed to their traditional status by upwardly mobile peasants and by Western-style reformism. After 1900 many of these groups coalesced into a more militant stream within Congress. Their syncretist symbolism and tactics—including a boycott of British goods—were eventually absorbed into the Congress mainstream under Gandhi, and many of their specific demands came to rest in the Hindu nationalist right. Others deprived by local forces, not by colonialism, saw themselves as downwardly mobile; Muslim elites in U.P. and non-Brahmin Tamils before 193o are examples." In some instances those mobilized by Western education did not initially identify themselves with anti-British sentiments but pursued other goals or even saw the predominantly Brahmin Congress as their adversary. In particular, newly literate members of artisan groups and other relatively low-status castes practicing occupations that gave them a degree of economic independence started, by the late nineteenth 12 Arun Swamy labels this interpretation the "perceived deprivation" hypothesis and diagrams it as follows:

Target of deprivation Upwardly mobile groups Britain Source of deprivation India

Western-educated classes (Brahmins) Tamil non-Brahmins after 193o, Bengali Muslims, Punjabi Hindus

Downwardly mobile groups Traditional lowermiddle classes Tamil non-Brahmins before 193o, U.P. Muslim elites

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century, to form caste lobbies aimed at upgrading their status or enhancing their opportunities. These associations frequently invented new caste labels that could embrace much wider constituencies than any existing jati. In the twentieth century in Bombay and Madras, where the local caste systems had not sharply differentiated elites other than Brahmins from less exalted groups, these tendencies broadened into anti-Brahmin movements, which asserted the unity of all non-Brahmins, simultaneously attacking the ideology of caste and the predominance of Brahmins in modern professions. In Bombay the non-Brahmin movement linked up with peasant grievances over land. In Madras the non-Brahmin Justice Party was initially led by well-to-do traditional elites experiencing a loss of status relative to Brahmins, who had historically been equals or even their clients. In both instances, however, many of those whom the movement claimed as supporters, or who had originally supported them, eventually joined Congress. Finally, peasant cultivators in many parts of the country periodically erupted in protest against the government's tax demands, rents, or other local grievances. Starting in the 192os, these movements were skillfully championed by Congress, which thereby incorporated what had been sporadic peasant protest into a movement for independence. Language, however, turned out to be the most divisive issue among these contending "nationalist" groups. By the third quarter of the nineteenth century, among the myriad vernaculars there were two "prestige" languages: English for all Western-educated people, Persian for literate Muslims; Sanskrit was reserved for Hindu liturgical practice. Their use, however, did not necessarily lead to mutually exclusive groups because in northern India a lingua franca called Hindustani, which contained both Persian and Sanskritic components, was spoken by all in addition to other vernaculars. Around it began the struggle over the dominance of two alternative new regional prestige languages, Hindi (Hindustani with a predominant Sanskrit vocabulary) and Urdu (Hindustani with a Persian emphasis). Language development and language use were politicized by 19oo as an expression of competing national identities. A plurality of scripts further inhibited the evolution of a single elite culture with a single prestige language. Hindus in U.P. dropped the PersianArabic script and adopted Sanskrit-derived Devanagari instead. But Devanagari was adopted by only two other regional languages; in other regions bearers of the elite cultures preferred to retain their own scripts, eight in all. While the Congress Liberals favored mass literacy campaigns in the villages based on un-Sanskritized Hindustani and created an organization to carry them out, Hindu Syncretists opposed them with their own move122

India ment, aimed at the systematic Sanskritization of the emerging northern Indian prestige language, which eventually became modern Hindi. Urdu and Hindi diverged from this point on, and Muslims and Hindus henceforth used the role and position of each language to make their claims for cultural autonomy from each other. Sikhs soon emulated them by insisting that Punjabi, having its own script, was a language specific to Sikhism (even though Punjabi is also spoken by local Muslims). This is just another instance of the fuzziness of cultural identity markers in India, where language, religion, and social status covary as sharply separate attributes as often as they overlap or remain murky. Muslims, in addition, also insisted that they were being systematically discriminated against in public employment and in the professions because they were supposedly lagging in access to Western educational facilities. This claim got to be a matter of Muslim faith by 1940, though later studies showed it to be unambiguously true only in three provinces. But, as students of nationalism know so well, the perception of being deprived is much more salient than any reality. Gandhi essentially fashioned a tactically unified movement for independence from Britain during the 1920s and 193os (which included the Muslim League at times) by building a loose confederation of separate movements, each based on provincial and local client groups. Congress did not attempt, therefore, to articulate a single, all-Indian ideology other than to demand independence. Still, even this very limited consensus sufficed to justify Rajgopalachari's drive to make Hindi a national language, to back the various nonviolent resistance campaigns Gandhi launched, and to bring about the mass resignation of all Congress provincial ministries in 1939 in protest against Britain's declaration of war against Germany, made without consulting India. INDEPENDENCE WITHOUT NATION-STATEHOOD Thus, eventual rationalization, as social mobilization and modernization continue under the auspices of the independent state, is made difficult; elites confront many obstacles in attempting to solve problems; peaceful integration into international society and economy becomes uncertain. It is amazing that the postindependence governing elite pushed India as far toward rationalization as it did. Social Mobilization and Modernization around 1940 In 1941 389 million people lived in undivided India. The rate of population growth had increased by about 5 percent every decade since 19oo; 123

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it stood at 15 percent per decade in 1941.13 Only 15 percent of Indians were literate, 27 percent of men and 7 percent of women. Only 13 percent of Indians lived in cities; the rate of urbanization was negligible and had been stagnant for decades. Still, GNP stood at $6o per capita in 195o; it had grown at less than 1 percent per year since 193o. Seventythree percent still made their living from agriculture; industry accounted for only 12 percent, trade for 6 percent, the liberal professions for 2 percent, and all types of government employment for 7 percent. Observers doubt that these proportions had changed greatly from earlier in the century. Internal migration was and had been negligible except for limited movement from south to north and from west to east. Only 7 percent of the population was reported to be in school in 1931 (in Europe the corresponding figure was 15.5 percent). By 1937, 2.8 percent of the population was enrolled in primary schools, o.6 percent in secondary schools, and a mere 0.03 percent in colleges and universities. Nineteen percent of the literates knew some English. These figures all bespeak limited social mobilization and hardly any modernity at all. They must be contrasted with a second set of indicators suggesting that a good deal of mobilization had occurred just the same. By 1936 there were 365 cotton mills; the industrial workforce grew by 4 percent per year by 1937. In the same year there were 379 strikes and lockouts involving 648,000 workers; these numbers had increased steadily since the 1920s. Membership in provincial farmers' organizations reached 5oo,000 in 1938, most in North India. Political mobilization was also speeding up. After the 1935 constitutional reforms the franchise—because it was based mostly on property qualifications—covered "about one sixth of the number who would have been enfranchised under universal suffrage,"14 or 11 percent of the population of British India. About half the eligible voters bothered to cast their ballots, not bad for a still very traditional country. The success of Congress as a mobilizer is manifest in the fact that more than 90,000 people had themselves arrested in the nonviolent demonstrations of the 193os; the consumer boycotts declared by Congress brought about a decline of 5o percent in the value of imported textiles. By 193o Congress had 500,000 regular members; by 1938 there were 4,500,000. News of such Congress activities reached even poor peasants in most villages, mostly by word of mouth.

13 Some of these data come from Sarkar, Modern India, and Brown, Modern India. Others are taken from Kingsley Davis, The Population of India and Pakistan (New York: Russell and Russell, 1968). All statistics are contested approximations. 14 Brown, Modern India, p. 199.

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India Summary of Events Between 1928 and 1934 Gandhi had organized two satyagraha campaigns to force Britain to grant dominion status or independence; both failed, as did three round-table conferences in the 193os which sought to negotiate Britain's withdrawal. The failure was due to the inability of Muslim organizations, Congress, and Britain to agree on a constitutional formula even though Britain was willing to grant dominion status (which, after 1931, was equivalent to independence). During these talks, however, Congress defined its future role and settled on core constitutional principles for a future undivided independent India. These included a relatively unitary system of government with provinces defined by cultural homogeneity, each entitled to its own language. Cultural minorities were to be integrated by means of seats in legislatures "reserved" exclusively for them, rather than by full communal autonomy. Untouchability was recognized as an unacceptable evil. Industrialization was to be stimulated under state auspices. Congress became the sole legitimate political voice for Hindus as it won elections and assumed power in most provincial governments after 1935. But it also carried provinces with large Muslim electorates, suggesting that the separatism already being articulated by Muslim politicians was not shared by most Muslim voters. Electoral success was due to the tight links connecting Congress, business, and the organizations of the more prosperous peasants. The most important consequence of Congress's preeminence was the alienation of the Muslim League, which became final by the early 194os. The Sikhs, on the eve of independence, also demanded a state of their own in order to protect themselves against the perceived threat of absorption by Muslim culture. Muslim secession cannot be understood without an inquiry into the Hindu component of Congress nationalism to demonstrate why Congress liberalism was not of the classical kind. Growth of Hindu Nationalism: Syncretist or Not? One version of Hindu pluralist thought, as we shall see, provides legitimacy for even the secular Congress Party because it is expressed in the form of a nonsectarian civil religion. The political Hinduism of the Hindu Mahasabha and its successors, the Jana Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, is something quite different. It provides a cultural-primordial claim for political identity that may delay full rationalization of the polity; but, possibly, it could also provide a syncretist basis for successful rationalization. Hindu nationalism has assumed integralist, syncretist, and even liberal guises. 125

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The religious argument for a Hindu-Indian identity begins with the evocation of a golden age during Vedic times in which the four varnas (castes) lived in cooperative bliss and in organic unity, not in sectarian mutual hostility as in the age of corruption into which India later sank. The author of this myth was Swami Dayananda, the founder of the Arya Samaj, who wanted above all to purify and reform the Hindu religion to save it from the telling critiques of Muslims and Westerners. The introduction of separate Muslim electorates in 1906 prompted the creation by Hindu conservatives of a network of Hindu political clubs, the Hindu Sabhas. Many Arya Samajists eventually joined them. Following the Malabar riots of 1922, at the end of the Khilafat era (the riots were triggered by Muslim efforts in Malabar to convert Untouchables), these clubs united in the form of the Hindu Mahasabha, a party first within Congress and later in opposition to it. Mahasabhists sought to fight Muslims by teaching discipline and aggressiveness, not acquiescence in one's fate; therefore they condemned vegetarianism. They wanted to restore the more egalitarian system of varnas that was alleged to have prevailed in Vedic times. They demanded that a vital Hindu community, purified of Western and Muslim influences, be reconstituted on the basis of Hindutva, Hinduness, and serve as the sole definer of a nation-state on the subcontinent. All forms of "communalism" (i.e., electoral, constitutional, and territorial concessions to non-Hindus) were opposed. Yet Mahasabists welcomed modern industry, provided it remained in the context of Indian capitalism; the fruits of national economic development were to be distributed among all so as to recognize the "merit" of each economic class in the overall effort, while all must subordinate their gains to that of the nation as a whole. Nationalization of industry is also advocated in some instances, as is land expropriation with compensation. Protection against foreign imports is essential. These syncretists and their successors believed in the existence of a specifically Hindu nation, membership in which is defined by the acceptance of core religious-cultural values.15 15 This paragraph summarizes the arguments of the founders of the Hindu nationalist movement, V. D. Savarkar and M. S. Golwalkar; they date from the 1920S. The argument wavers between reformist and traditional syncretism; its economic argument mixes state-capitalist and state-socialist themes and is distinctly reformist. Indian nationality is defined in terms of adherence to Hindu culture and languages; being an observant Muslim or Christian could not be combined with being Indian. Yet no specific religiously (ritual) Hindu qualifications for Indian nationality were given by these writers. The BJP's notion of Hindutva differs from this early version: it tends toward liberalism. The RSS, however, insists on a much more rigorously religious test of Hindutva; its formulation is integralist. In 1964 the Vishva Hindu Parishad came into being as an ally of the RSS with the aim of extending Hindutva to Indian emigrants abroad. See Christophe Jaffrelot, "Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building," Economic and Political Weekly (March 2o, 1993): 517-24. See also Sarkar, Modern India; B. D. Graham, "The Congress and Hindu 126

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The Mahasabha, by 1925, had spawned a more radical offshoot, the Rashtriya Sawayansevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteer Corps, whose nationalism veered sharply toward integralism. The RSS is organized around small local cells, each headed by a leader who has renounced worldly success. He is regarded as the guru of his group and owes obedience to the next highest leader in the national hierarchy. The RSS cultivates martial arts, personal aggressiveness, and disciplined devotion to the cause of Hindutva; it also encourages brawling and other acts of violence against its opponents. One of its members assassinated Mohandas Gandhi in 1948. In the 199os most members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (the current main advocate of Hindutva) are said to have belonged to RSS. In 1940 it already had 1 oo,000 members, 200,000 by 1948, with millions of informal supporters, "a brotherhood in saffron . . . the Hindu Rashtra in miniature," as its supreme leader said. RSS agrees with other Hindu nationalists in deploring the division of Hindus into castes and sects; RSS's main objective is to substitute organic Hindu unity for the divisions and marry this unity to aggressive individualism and initiative. In the process, of course, the movement itself becomes sectarian. It seeks to be somewhat like its Western and Muslim enemies, the better to defeat them. Repeated efforts to convoke meetings of Hindu religious leaders to agree on a single reformed version of Hinduism have failed, even the most recent effort, the Universal Hindu Association, created by RSS in 1964. This organization was intended to give Hinduism a single organized church structure modeled on those of Christianity and Theravada Buddhism. The net result of various adaptations has been the downplaying of traditional Hindu religious themes despite the rhetoric of a Hindu revival, in favor of an emphasis on Hindubased political organization. Congress and Liberal Nationalism Under traditional Hindu kingship, the ruler had the obligation to protect religious law and especially to protect temples, pilgrimage sites, and access to them; representatives of the ruler usually joined the priests who officiated at important public rites.16 The British raj inherited these Nationalism," in D. A. Low, ed., The Indian National Congress (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 170-87; Walter K. Anderson and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987); and B. D. Graham, Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 16 In addition to Sarkar, Modern India, and Brown, Modern India, this section relies on Reginald Copeland, The Indian Problem, 3 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1944); Pramit Chaudhuri, "The Origins of Modern India's Economic Development Strategy," 127

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duties and carried them out until Christian missionaries protested and had the practice discontinued. Congress largely abandoned that role in its devotion to secularism and religious neutrality. The parliamentary reforms of 1935, though at first boycotted by Congress because the constitution was considered insufficiently democratic and centralist, nevertheless inadvertently made Congress into a liberaldemocratic electoral machine. It stumbled into parliamentarism once it decided to take office after its stunning victory in 1937. The Muslim League was unhappy with the Act of 1935 because Muslims merely obtained reserved seats in Muslim-minority provinces, not the separate electorates they had been consistently denied by Congress and by Britain. Economic policy before independence was the subject of disagreements among socialists, pro-business groups, and agrarian reformers. Socialists—democratic and Marxist, inside Congress as well as out— favored planned industrialization under state auspices; business, and its supporters among Congress politicians, argued for state protection to shield Indian firms from foreign competition, but they made their peace with Congress's commitment to the nationalization of the public utilities and heavy industry. Gandhians opposed industrialization altogether in favor of self-contained village communities whose peasants would receive land as voluntary gifts from landlords. There was, however, considerable agreement that India had to be saved from the snares of international capitalism by means of the array of policies that later became popular under the label "dependency reduction." Perhaps because of this range of views, Congress's commitment to the rules of democratic decision making was unswerving. Integralists and syncretists, as well as members of religious minorities, were unhappy because they were denied the corporate special rights they sought. Heterogeneity of views compelled democratic decision making and respect for individual rights, not everyone's principled commitment to liberalism.

in Mike Shepperdson and Colin Simmons, eds., The Indian National Congress and the Political Economy of India (Brookfield, Vt.: Gower Publishing Co., 1988), pp. 272-81; and A. D. D. Gordon, Businessmen and Politics (New Delhi: Manohar, 1978). Even socialism did not offer a consensual formula for thought and action. Juxtaposed to Nehru's conventional notions resembling western European social democratic models of the 193os is Jayaprakash Narayan's orthodox Marxism married to a Gandhian notion of a spiritually reformed individual and of nonviolence, the particular version of welfare politics Indians call sarvodaya. Yet even Nehru found it necessary to adopt the syncretist rhetoric of yugadharma and samanvaya to justify his modernism. Vinoba Bhave advocated a similar doctrine and even used satyagraha against the Congress government. See D. M. Brown, The Nationalist Movement: Indian Political Thought from Ranade to Bhave (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), chaps. 11 and 1 2 .

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India A Hindu Civil Religion Hindu nationalists maintain that underneath the superficial diversity of India's sects and castes lies an essential unity, a unity in diversity. Anyone who recognizes India as a geographical homeland and as a cultural heartland is a true Indian, that is, a Hindian. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Untouchables, and Christian Indians, no matter their superficial sectarian identities, partake of this essential Hindu unity, if they would only put aside their squabbles and recognize it.'7

The unchallengeable truth, however, is that as of 1947 they surely did not recognize it. In fact, they used their "superficial sectarian identities" to define their national selves. By the 189os efforts were already being made by Swami Vivekananda to elaborate a Hindu theology that would be able to serve as the cultural matrix for Indians of all religious persuasions. His use of the Advaitin Vedanta was designed to provide a home for all monotheistic religions and therefore serve as a civil religion for Indians of all sectarian persuasions despite its Hindu provenance. The creed included a commitment to social reform as well as to democratic pluralism. It bridged liberal and reformist-syncretist notions of the Indian self. It enabled a president of the republic, Sarvepelli Radhakrishnan, to defend democratic pluralism even though he rejected many Western values.18 Those who continue to believe in a Hindu-tinged civil religion, of course, cannot make their peace with either the creation of Pakistan or the drive for a Sikh Khalistan. To the believer in this creed, all inhabitants of South Asia are members of one civilization, even one race (with the exception of the northeast provinces), long united in a "common history," no matter how fratricidal and fragmenting that history actually was. '7 Richard G. Fox, "Hindu Nationalism in the Making, or the Rise of the Hindian," in Fox, ed., Nationalist Ideologies and the Production of National Cultures (Washington, D.C.: American Ethnological Society, sggo), p. 68. Also see Ninian Smart, "India, Sri Lanka, and Religion," in Gustavo Benavides and M. W. Daly, eds., Religion and Political Power (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 22-28. On Radhakrishnan, see Brown, Modern India, chap. s o. 18 Commentators continue to disagree in their assessment of Gandhi as a syncretist, as desiring to fashion a Hindu vision of independent India. He used, but downplayed, Hindu ritual. But the mass public, nevertheless, gave him the adulation due a sadhu because Gandhi's renunciation of worldly success placed him in that religious tradition. One line of commentary stresses the centrality of swaraj in his thought, thus claiming a quasi-religious basis for a practical argument for independence; for Gandhi, swaraj meant both individual selfmastery and personal responsibility and collective self-mastery (against British rule). See Anthony J. Parel, "The Doctrine of Swaraj in Gandhi's Philosophy," in Upendra Baxi and Bhiku Parekh, eds., Crisis and Change in Contemporary India (New Delhi: Sage, 1995), pp. 57-81. Judith Brown, however, argues that the notion of swaraj had no special relevance for India because Gandhi thought of it as a universal principle. "Gandhi: Guru for the ggos?" in ibid., pp. 82-97.

129

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

What matters to the believer is not so much the Hindu religion but the myths, holidays, and proper names that had their origin in the religion. The Congress's acceptance of this definition of the Indian self just before independence made the reconciliation of Muslims to the new state very difficult. The decisive break probably came in 1937 when the victorious Congress flatly declined to share power with the Muslim League in the provinces it had gained. It had consistently refused Muslim demands for separate electorates even while the Muslim elites remained undecided as to whether they could make their peace with life in an undivided independent Indian state. It haggled over the number of seats to be reserved for Muslims. Hindu civil religion refused to acknowledge that many Muslims might really feel themselves to be outside it. In short, Congress made many Muslims feel unwelcome. "The Muslim Nation": The Emergence of Pakistan as a Would-Be Nation-State Given these mutual perceptions of distrust and dislike, was the division of British India into two sovereign states inevitable? Debate on this question continues to this day. In the terms of our theory of nation-building, a number of questions would have to be answered positively in order to make the case for inevitability. I doubt that such a case can be made. Sir Muhammad Iqbal, in 193o, declared that cooperation in India demanded the creation of homelands for the Muslim in which he could enjoy "full and free development on the lines of his own culture and tradition." Two Aligarh University professors, in 1939, insisted that Indian Muslims are "a nation by themselves," who must not be "enslaved into a single all-India federation with an overwhelming Hindu majority in the Center."19 Rahmat Ali, a student at Cambridge University, coined the name Pakistan to denote a sovereign state to be created in the northwest corner of India—Punjab, Afghan provinces (Northwest Frontier and Baluchistan), Kashmir, and Sind. At roughly the same time, others arguing in the name of the oppressed "Muslim nation" in India demanded an 19 Brown, Modern India, p. 132. I take no position on the continuing controversy about Jinnah's personal motives. My argument is an amalgam of the studies of Paul Brass and Francis Robinson. Brass's core theme is almost identical with my model; Robinson's differences from it are sufficiently minor to encourage me to attempt this reconciliation, especially in view of Brass's reformulation. See Brass, Language, Religion, and Politics; Francis Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). Also see Francis Robinson, "Nation-Formation: The Brass Thesis and Muslim Separatism," in Robin Jeffrey et al., eds., India: Rebellion to Republic (New Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1990), pp. 128-53, including Brass's response. Also see Aziz Ahmed, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan (London: Oxford University Press, 1967).

130

India independent Bengal, an independent Hyderabad, or a federation of all or some of these, either joined confederally to "Hindustan" or not. The justifications for these measures were always couched in reformistor traditional-syncretist terms. Other Muslims, however, subscribed to the secular-liberal nationalism of many Congress leaders and saw the future of Muslim Indians as part of a united India in which they would, at most, have reserved seats in all legislatures. The Muslim League had failed to achieve the status of legitimate leadership over Muslim Indians before 1946. At no time was there full agreement within the Muslim elite; we cannot be sure that the partially mobilized rural Muslim population was deeply involved in these debates at all, though most non-elite urban dwellers probably were mobilized by the end of the Khilafat movement. And, until 1940, Mohammad Ali Jinnah had never demanded a fully independent Pakistan; he wanted parity of representation with Hindus in all Indian governing bodies, and he wanted Congress to recognize the right of the Muslim League to rule in all Muslim-majority provinces, requests that neither Britain nor Congress ever granted. Apparently, there never was a plan for an independent Pakistan to which all groups among Muslims had agreed; many leaders remained willing to retain ties between their provinces and an Indian federation. There was no single dominant nationalist ideology that brooked no compromise with Hinduism, though some groups denied the possibility of cohabitation. Britain forced the decision for secession by announcing an irrevocable deadline for its withdrawal from the subcontinent before Muslims had agreed among themselves. It is a telling commentary on the shambles that was Pakistan in 1947 that Jinnah, as the head of the new entity, requested that British administrators stay in place, that the newly created armed forces be officered largely by Britons, and that British governors remain in office in the provinces. Why, then, did Muslims come to see themselves as a separate nation? Observers agree that, at the mass level, peasants of the Muslim and Hindu faiths in North India were not sharply differentiated in terms of cultural patterns, including some religious rituals, as late as the end of the nineteenth century. Muslim religious faith by no means automatically translated into Muslim political identity. At the level of folk culture the separation came much later. At the elite and urban levels, however, things were different. Apparently, Muslims in northern India expected to enter government service and the professions because they vividly remembered the symbols and status of having been the rulers before the British raj took over. The fact that Hindus took advantage of Western education faster and more enthusiastically was experienced as a threat. Having been the prestige stratum since Mughal days, they feared future status deprivation because of the 13I

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

more rapid advance of Hindus and continued inferiority vis-a-vis Britain. As Hindus energetically launched cultural reform movements, Muslims imitated these in defense against both Hindu and British rule. The elite in North India mobilized because it had been the dominant group for centuries and saw its hegemony slip away. In doing so, it selected those symbols and values that provided the greatest opportunity for asserting an identity clearly separate from both Hindu and the West: slightly modernized Islam. Those who sought assimilation to Western ways, of course, eschewed an overt Muslim identification and preferred to remain within a Congress whose commitment to secularism they trusted. In fact, it was in Muslim-minority provinces that the Muslim League did best electorally, whereas allies of Congress won in several Muslim-majority provinces. What about the partially mobilized peasantry and its folk Islam? We know that before the Khilafat movement these people were apolitical. We also know that the Muslim League did not effectively command their support until about 1940. We can only speculate about nationalist commitment among the peasantry, but we do know that communal tensions became more and more serious at the mass level. Unorganized communal violence grew throughout the twentieth century until it became the genocidal orgy of 1947 as millions of Muslims fled westward and Hindus moved to the east. Perhaps the rural masses were not nationalists, but they surely had little love for each other. It seems that neither the mobilization-assimilation imbalance nor the concomitant ideological arousal and commitment, by itself, forced the secession of Muslim from Hindu India, though both were in serious play. The institutional pressures of politics are also needed to explain the outcome. Separate electorates and reserved seats provide incentives for professional politicians to form parties, to resist inclusion in coalitions, to seek electoral supporters who prefer isolation from other groups of electors. In short, these institutions breed mutual exclusion and distrust. Once the Muslim League leaders (and especially Jinnah) realized that their power depended on cultivating exclusiveness, they turned to syncretist nationalism despite their occasional liberal preferences. They preached symbols of exclusion because their careers seemed to depend on exclusion from the Congress mainstream. If they were also believing Muslims and genuine adherents of Islamic cultural values, of course, they had further reason to remain separate from Congress. Genuine commitment as well as instrumental motives argued for the unwavering dual demand for exclusive control at the local levels in Muslim-majority provinces and parity of representation in mixed and central legislatures. These choices by the leaders were deliberate and instrumental; they were 132

India not inevitable. A slightly different approach by Congress and by Britain might well have prevented Muslim secession. MODERNIZATION AND RATIONALIZATION AFTER INDEPENDENCE Any inquiry into the evolution of a national myth requires an understanding of the changes in the rate of social mobilization since the establishment of the state. It also demands that we assess periodically whether India is becoming more or less cohesive, more or less like an integrated nation-state. Only after we know the direction of these changes can we come to a conclusion as to whether or not elites are learning to manage increasing complexity and increasing interdependencies among actors and their actions. And only then can we make a judgment whether or not the nation-state remains the preferred forum for action under the auspices of liberal values and institutions as the privileged rationalization formula. I anticipate the conclusion: social mobilization is approaching completion, but not the successful assimilation of the mobilized strata into the positions of honor and wealth they seek. National identity remains unsettled, a matter still being contested. Modernization remains incomplete and so does rationalization. Is liberal nationalism the best formula in India for the effective and peaceful solution of problems in a world in which the nation-state is increasingly recognized as less than a reliably effective actor? We now survey the evolution of economic policies and the construction of political institutions in the search for an answer. How Socially Mobilized Is India? The key indicators of mobilization are shown in table 3-1. Additional indicators, though not available as regular time series, show a much more mixed picture.2° In 1984 there were 1,80o daily newspapers, 6,700 weeklies, and 14,000 "other" periodicals, not an impressive number for a population of upward of 800 million using more than fifteen written languages. Regional imbalances are evident because U.P., West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra together account for 43 percent of the total. In 1974 there were 8,740 cinemas (1.6 per 100,000); even though the number in 1988 was almost 13,000, it remained at 1.6 per 100,000. 2" All data in this section come from Economic Intelligence Service, Basic Statistics Relating to the Indian Economy, vol. 2 (Bombay: Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy, 1989). See tables 5.12, 5.14, 6.1, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.15, 6.16.

133

Table 3-1. India: Indicators of social mobilization 1950 Voter participation (%)' Average annual average increase School enrollments (% of age group) h Primary Middle High University Literacy (%)c Average annual increase Literacy, male (%) Average annual increase Urbanization (%)d Average annual increase Percent of population living in towns >100,000 Average annual increase Workers in agriculture (%)e Average annual decline Newspaper circulation (millions)f Hindi English State languages Average annual increase, all Bilingualism (% male pop.)g Radio coverage (% of pop.)f Radios licensed (millions)f Average annual increase TV coverage (% of pop.)f TV sets licensed (millions)f Cinema facilities (#)f Migration (% of male pop.) '' Growth rate, GNP per capita'

Approximately 1970 1990

46

55 0.5

62 0.3

43 13 5 N/A

79 13 19 4

96 29 22 N/A

28

34 o.3

40

46 o.3 20 0.15 11 0.2 7o o

52 0.9 64 0.9

17 8 7o

26 0.3 17 0.3 65 0.25

N/A N/A N/A N/A

29 6 7 14

3.9 20

6.7

55 16 10 26 0.7 N/A

73 12 0.4 neg.

95 21 0.5 83

0.24 6,987

2.2 12,732

4.5 1.0

4.4 3.4

5

3,238 6.2 1.8

a Computed from David Butler, Ashok Lahiri, and Prannoy Roy, India Decides: Elections, 1952-1991 (New Delhi: Living Media, 1991), p. 7o. The statistics cover voter turnout and the eligible electorate in elections for the central legislature in 1952 (the base year), 1971, 1989.

Notes to Table 3-1 (continued) b World Bank, India: Poverty, Employment, and Social Services (1989) , p. 203. • Census of India, 1991a, p. 67, for 1991 figures, counting people over age 7; Economic Intelligence Service, Basic Statistics Relating to the Indian Economy, vol. 2, table 2.11 (Bombay Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy [CMIEJ) for 1951 and 1971 figures, counting people over age 5. According to a 1999 National Readership Survey by the National Readership Studies Council, overall literacy stands at 61 percent, 8o percent in urban areas, 67 percent in rural areas, and 39 percent for women in rural areas. One third of the population is urban. Average family size is 4.9 persons. See Frontline 16, no. 20 (September 25— October 8, 1999). d CMIE, table 1.14 for 1951 and 1971; 1991 figure from Census of India, 1991b, p. 19. e Figures for 1951 and 1971 from A. N. Agrawal et al., India: Economic Information Yearbook, 1989-90 (New Delhi: National Publishing House, 1991), p. 80. Figures for 1991 from Census of India, series 1, paper 3, 1991, p. 443. f Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Mass Media in India, various issues, statistical appendixes. Column 1990 uses 1988 figures. Newspaper circulation from 1979-80 and 1988 issues; radio coverage from 1988 issue; TV coverage is from 1988 issue, p. 62. According to a 1999 National Readership Survey by the National Readership Studies Council, 53 percent of the population aged fifteen and over is exposed to television (8o percent in urban areas, 41 percent in rural areas), 3o percent to the press, and 28 percent to radio. The ten leading circulation newspapers do not include a single English-language publication; the Times of India with a circulation of 4.2 million did not quite make it. All major regional languages are represented except Bengali. A Tamil paper is almost tied with a Hindi paper for first place. See Frontline 16, no. 20 (September 25—October 4, 1999). g Columns refer to 1961 and 1971. Census counted males who spoke any Indian language and English: 10.2% of speakers of Dravidian languages spoke English in 1971, whereas the percentage for Hindi speakers was 5.8; in speakers of major non-Hindi languages, 7.7% spoke English, and only 5.7% spoke Hindi in 1971. The figures on bilingualism in the 1981 census are uninterpretable. From Census of India, 1961 and 1971, bilingualism tables. h Columns refer to 1961, 1971, and 1981, respectively. Census categories of "migrants" differed somewhat in each year. Generally, males counted were those who had moved across district lines during the previous ten years as a percentage of total male population. From Census of India, 1961, vol. i, part IIC; 1971, series 1, part IID (i); 1981, series 1, part VA and B(i). Figures refer to annual compound rates of growth for the periods 1959-56, 1969-74, and 1985—go. From Government of India, Economic Survey, 1990-91.

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

In 1972, 21 percent of villages had been electrified, and that number had risen to 78 percent by 1989, even though tremendous regional variations exist. There were about 3,500 consumers of electricity per Ioo,000 persons in 1974 and almost 6,000 by 1985. This is a phenomenal increase because of its impact on agriculture and rural industry, even though it covers only 14 percent of households. Railway mileage increased hardly at all since 1971. But there was a 7 percent increase in surfaced roads since 1974, or 5 km per 100,000, or 10o km per thousand square miles of area. Yet nationally only 41 percent of villages are connected to all-weather roads, though almost loo percent of villages in Punjab, Kerala, and Haryana have such access. An infrastructure index (all of India = 100, at each year data point) mapping changes between 1966 and 1988 notes a relative increase in all infrastructure for Punjab, Haryana, Kerala, Rajastan, Assam, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra, Gujarat, and Karnataka (though all declined after 1985); a relative decline for Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Maharashtra; and no change in U.P. and Bihar. This means a gradual narrowing of the infrastructure gap between the most and least developed. As a rough rule it can be said that the Hindi-speaking states lag behind others; as social mobilization picks up speed there, one may anticipate more civil unrest.

How Mobilized Is the Subcontinent? Clearly, social mobilization went forward very rapidly after independence. Though not yet fully mobilized, the population has covered more than half the road leading to that condition. Over half the population is literate. Peasants move freely to the cities, though most children in rural areas still adopt their parents' occupation. Almost everyone is exposed to the electronic media. The subsistence agricultural sector still exists but is shrinking rapidly. Industry, though it began in a few enclaves, is now to be found in many places. The extended family and religious institutions remain the main suppliers of social services, at least in rural areas. Intermediate organizations flourish. Those who work in the modern sector seem to have no desire to return to traditional life; though they sometimes display dissatisfaction with the rewards modern life offers them, the demand is for more modern amenities and goods, not for a preindustrial village life. The state is seen more and more as the major source of these amenities and goods, not a remote oppressor to be avoided; disaffected regional groups denounce the central state, not the principle of stateness. 136

India

In both India and Pakistan rationalization after independence was particularly hard to achieve perhaps because of the rapid progress of social mobilization. For those undergoing mobilization, difficult choices had to be made because there were many possible elite cultures to be joined, emulated, or reformed, not just one. Until very recently, the social distance between masses and elites was widening; this made it difficult for leaders to find single rationalization formulas to satisfy both elites and masses. In traditional India there was no single feudal or patrimonial pattern of social and economic interaction. Instead, regions varied enormously because of diverse patterns of intercaste and interfaith relations. The peasantry tended to be isolated from court high culture everywhere. When British administrators sought to subordinate local law and custom to Western notions of legal rationality, they were widely misunderstood because it proved difficult to combine the relatively precise Western legal categories with traditional notions of kingship and kingly duty, property, or group membership; nor did these necessarily mesh cleanly with local custom and ritual. Is the travail in India (and Pakistan) due to the fact that these gaps in social mobilization continue to exist? Or is the travail due to the learning experience these countries are undergoing in seeking to put tradition behind them?21 The anguish of continued rationalization in India is suggested by these trends. Thirty-eight political parties competed in the 1998 parliamentary elections. Cycles of communal rioting occur almost everywhere and often in cities heavily inhabited by former refugees from Pakistan, which have a substantial Muslim population competing with Hindus.22 Voluntary organizations are growing up everywhere, particularly movements that seek simultaneously to protect tribal peoples and the physical environment, such as in the Narmada Valley Project and its Sardar Sarovar Dam. In the following sections I examine policies relating to economic and to constitutional/institutional development for answers. I begin with Indian policies toward economic development. 21 The full theoretical discussion of learning as opposed to adaptation is in Ernst B. Haas, "Collective Learning," in George W. Breslauer and Philip E. Tetlock, eds., Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991). See also Chapter 1 of this and the previous volume. 22 In Bihar there was a regular inter-caste war in 1999, leading to an abortive effort by Prime Minister Vajpayee to dismiss the state government that, despite claiming to be on the side of the poor, did nothing to stop the violence. Lower-caste groups (Dalits), armed by the Communists, warred on militias created by upper-caste groups, who busied themselves by murdering Dalits. Also in 1999 Hindu mobs affiliated with the BJP murdered many Christians and Muslims in Gujarat. The head of the BJP, Home Minister Advani, protected the mobs but also fasted to stop them, while a fasting Prime Minister Vajpayee did condemn the murders.

1.37

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Economic Development in India: Evidence of Learning Although there was no absolute consensus on matters relating to economic development policy in the early years of Indian independence, policy in New Delhi was in fact made by a coherent group that agreed on priorities and means." Those who disagreed with it were not of one mind among themselves and unable to wield power except in a few states. We review the dissenters before discussing the policies of Congress-affiliated technocrats. Everyone except the Gandhians accepted the need for centrally guided industrialization, and even the Gandhians joined the general consensus in favor of protecting Indian manufactures from imports. Almost everyone—the exception was a group of conservative Hindu-inspired businessmen led by Sardar Patel—favored state ownership of future installations of heavy industry. But business groups in general opposed state regulation of the private sector as well as nationalization of existing plants. Land reform, though favored by the central planners, was opposed by almost all other organized groups, while everyone professed to favor special programs to enhance the welfare of the poorest. Gandhians and Congress conservatives were opposed by Marxist integralists of various kinds who never gained much power in New Delhi but who emerged as successful radical rural reformers in Kerala and West Bengal. The Maoist wing—the Naxalite movement—was removed by force. Central planning as knowledge. None of these claims to economic knowledge managed to challenge the socialist-Congress approach, which was to dominate until 1975. Its main champions were the Nehrus, father and daughter, and the epistemic community of development planners who dominated economic policy in Delhi for almost thirty years. Increasingly, however, what had been consensual knowledge about economic development in the 195os, as legitimated by United Nations aid, lost credence as it failed to solve the problems it was expected to remove. What did the claim for central planning involve? Was it consistent with liberal nationalism? The goal of planning was the reduction of poverty and the establishment of a minimum acceptable standard of living; the target for improved nutrition, clothing, and housing was an increase of between 200 and 30o percent in ten years! But because the planners thought 28 The following sources were used in the discussion of economic development: Paul R. Brass, The Politics of India since Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Sukhamoy Chakravarty, Development Planning: The Indian Experience (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987); Francine R. Frankel, India's Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Subroto Roy and William E. James, eds., Foundations of India's Political Economy (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1992), especially the, chapter by T. N. Srinivasan; Hung-Chao Tai, Land Reform and Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).

138

India

of heavy industry as the "commanding heights" of the economy, this objective was to be accomplished by the creation of state-owned heavy transportation and resource-extraction industries. The remaining small private sector, including banking and insurance, was to be heavily regulated. Foreign trade was to be centrally planned and kept to a minimum in order to make India self-sufficient and to resist "imperialism." Income redistribution, though a declared goal, was not made into binding law; the sanctity of private property was made subject to its conformity with public policy. All this is consistent with liberal nationalism. So is reliance on a strong public sector to create a technologically self-sufficient and militarily powerful state. As Nehru explained it: It can hardly be challenged that, in the context of the modern world, no country can be politically and economically independent, even within the framework of international interdependence, unless it is highly industrialized and has developed its power resources to the utmost. Nor can it achieve or maintain high standards of living and liquidate poverty without aid of modern technology in almost every sphere of life. An industrially backward country will continually upset the world equilibrium and encourage the aggressive tendencies of more developed countries. Even if it retains its political independence, this will be nominal only and economic control will tend to pass to others.24 The commitment to science as an instrument of military autonomy inspired an epistemic community of technocrats that included physicists, engineers, and economists. In large part the commitment was also due to the role of Enlightenment ways in the thinking of the social-democratic Congress establishment: science meant the systematic analysis of problems and their solutions, technical and human. Thus, the state conducted research and development in nuclear power (civilian and military), computers, and telecommunications, among other fields. It then nurtured private companies to undertake the manufacturing, sheltering them all the while against multinational firms, many 24 J. Nehru, The Discovery of India (London: Meridian Books, 1946), p. 403. The commitment to science on the part of the Congress establishment, not merely as a tool but as a key to systematic analysis, is discussed by Itty Abraham, "Science and Power in the Post-Colonial State," Alternatives 21 (1996): 321-39. Some commentators suggest that by 1962 Nehru despaired of his science/technology-based economic policy as ineffective and began to look with greater favor on the syncretist tradition in economics preached by Gandhi and practiced by Vinoba Bhave. See Bhikhu Parekh, "Jawaharlal Nehru and the Crisis of Modernisation," in Baxi and Parekh, Crisis and Change, pp. 50-54. For details on the conceptual link between the desire for defense autonomy and stateorganized science/technology R & D in the computer, telecommunications, and nuclear power industries, see Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 1°6, 114-15, 133-35, 152-54, 168-73.

139

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

of which were driven from India. By the 198os the state encouraged the private companies to strike out on their own. Considerable learning occurred in managing high-tech innovation, even though the parastatals had difficulties deciding whether to continue to shelter their privatesector proteges or make them fully autonomous. India adapts to policy failure. The marginality of thought other than this integrally tinged liberal nationalism endowed it with the status of consensual knowledge until the late 196os. That status was undermined by the failure to banish poverty, prevail militarily against China, cope with food shortages, and limit population growth despite the fact that resources were overwhelmingly devoted to building up state-owned heavy industry. This was primarily done at the expense of agriculture and of social services, while relying on administered prices, licensed foreign trade, and compulsory production targets. Policy was justified by the theory that underdevelopment was driven by capital shortage. Therefore, the state had to generate the necessary capital by extracting "surpluses" from the consumption and agricultural sectors. The small private sector was given the role of producing the relatively few consumption goods encouraged by the plans of this era, thus also permitting some of the unemployment ignored by the industrialization program to be absorbed. The state-sponsored development of science and technology was especially stressed in order to stimulate technological self-reliance in the conduct of research and development. The determination to demonstrate that India was once again a major independent contributor to world civilization played a big role in this decision, a view closely linked to the nationalism of wanting to be a secular, socialist, progressive society. Thus, between 1951 and 1966, outlays for R & D rose from 0.05 percent of GNP to 0.31, favoring nuclear energy, defense-related research, and agriculture. By the end of the 196os it was realized that the emphasis on creating the educational and research infrastructure for science did not necessarily produce technological spin-offs useful to industry. Until the early 198os India's technology policy was heavily biased against cooperative undertakings with foreign firms and against direct foreign investment in high-technology sectors. Disappointment with the so-called Nehru-Mahalanobis development strategy was palpable by the mid-196os, because it drew upon a model of what a modern industrial society and a big military power looked like . . . and drew up the requirements for India to achieve a similar status irrespective of its own resources, social structure and the needs of its people. . . . [This] meant the sacrifice or postponement of virtually all other ideals and goals to which Nehru and the planners paid lip service.25 25

Brass, Politics of India, p. 249-

140

India The planners and politicians adapted to the disappointment by changing means, not by reexamining their basic objectives. Between 1966 and 197o they were compelled to encourage foreign trade to earn foreign exchange to import food. The bias against foreign investments and imported technology became more extreme. Heavy increases in R & D expenditures relating to the development of drought- and pest-resistant strains of wheat and rice were made, a choice that eventually became a stunning success in terms of productivity. Indira Gandhi intensified the financing of technology-producing R & D activities in order to bring about total national self-sufficiency in defense, energy, telecommunications, and food production. She associated scientists closely with policy making while favoring nuclear and space activities in the uninterrupted search for national military prowess. In general, the failure of the Nehru-Mahalanobis approach was compensated for by Indira Gandhi and her faction of the Congress Party by drawing on the integral as well as the liberal strains of Indian nationalism. This occurred during the period of "the emergency," the personal dictatorship of the prime minister approved by Parliament, lasting from 1975 to 1977. The emergency was declared in part to suppress strong popular protests against inflation, in part to protect Indira Gandhi from an adverse court decision, and in part to ride out crucial electoral defeats. During the emergency, opposition politicians were jailed and Parliament eventually suspended. Vasectomies were made practically compulsory in parts of the country. Discipline and state dominance was to be achieved by eliminating critics. India learns to change basic objectives. Nevertheless, opposition to the Indira Gandhi dictatorship brought about an election in 1977 which resulted in a victory for the combined opposition to Congress, a motley crew that called itself the Janata Party. It sought to refocus the rationale underlying economic development policies by stressing the needs of India's rural masses. However, the changes only involved systematizing piecemeal measures already introduced by Indira Gandhi and legitimating them under the label "integrated rural development." The policy change was due to popular dissatisfaction with Congress and the ideological preconceptions of Janata, which combined rural socialism with some Gandhian notions, not with systematic learning. True learning, however, came into play when Janata's policy changes were incorporated by a chastened Congress into its program after Indira Gandhi's reelection and especially after her son Rajiv became prime minister, following her assassination in 1984. The group of economists assembled by L. K. Jha served as an epistemic community in facilitating the changes. What were Janata's changes? Indira Gandhi had begun to shift the attention of planners to the peasantry by initiating a series of rural income141

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

enhancing programs in order to stimulate rural employment, without jettisoning the principle of massive economic development via industrialization. Janata retained and strengthened these policies and combined them with efforts to enhance rural housing, education, and public health standards. In general, the policy involved a serious upgrading of the rural sectors. Nevertheless, Janata bore down heavily on foreign corporations for failing to share their technologies. It shifted public funds to such rural development programs as food-in-payment-for-participation-inpublic-works-construction. It offered heavy infusions of funds to local governing bodies, a step that the Congress governments of the 198os converted into a very large program of rural credit for the poorest. Janata also began the process, intensified by Congress later, of easing the myriad restrictions on private enterprise. The lesson learned by Congress thereafter was straightforward: overly regulated, centrally planned economies are inefficient and alienate people who fail to improve their living standards as rapidly as their neighbors who managed to benefit from earlier piecemeal measures of liberalization. This new Indian middle class may. number as many as 200 million, presenting a volatile mixture of upwardly mobile people, the satisfied as well as the disappointed. Satisfying them called for drastic policies of making available many more consumer goods. Thus Rajiv Gandhi and his successors reduced the restrictions governing private business. They encouraged foreign investment by favoring joint ventures with foreign firms likely to enhance the stock of Indian technology. Restrictions on imports were sharply reduced. Rural industries, agro-complexes rather than Gandhian-type enterprises, were supported. Financial markets were liberalized and private sector financial services introduced. Learning remains incomplete, however, as long as the acceptance of a new theory of economic growth is marred by inadequate attention to institutional reform necessary to generalize the anticipated benefits. Policy learning did not occur rapidly or painlessly. Indira Gandhi's reform of the public sector proceeded fitfully. It did not really begin until 198o, and it gathered force only after her death in 1984. Reform did not lead to the privatization of public-sector firms; the central government merely stiffened the terms under which it would continue to subsidize parastatals unable to break even. Even this pressure turned out to be inadequate. Parastatals continued to perform inefficiently because the members of the coalition of economic interests on which Congress depended were not interested in industrial innovation. The planning bureaucracy lacked selectiveness in its support of industry; it had no clear priorities even though shifts among goals took place. 142

India It was not until Narasimha Rao's prime ministership in 1991 that the lessons finally sank in. By that time the budget crisis was intense, the state was on the verge of bankruptcy, and Congress was drowning in its own corruption. Only then did the final break with state socialism occur. Yet India has not abandoned central planning, though the objectives as well as the means have been changed, incrementally before 1984, dramatically since then. Efficiency became the core objective, not state power or autonomy. The government invested increasingly in educational infrastructure to make elementary education and literacy universal. Rural basic needs were to be met and food self-sufficiency guaranteed. Industrial growth was to continue in a measure adequate to support these objectives, though it remained the overriding goal. Majority state control over parastatal enterprises offering shares to the public was to be retained. Indian planners and politicians expected during the Emergency that nonliberal politics would enhance economic growth; they learned that this is not necessarily true, that democracy and growth need not be incompatible. From collective to private agriculture. Nehru and the Congress socialists were certain that they did not approve of private ownership of land, but they were unsure whether to emulate mild versions of the Chinese or the Soviet collectivist mode of agricultural organization. Things did not work out this way as technology and more conservative forces combined to tilt India squarely in the direction of state-subsidized capitalist agricultural production favoring medium-sized, family-owned farms. Around 1966, before the onset of the Green Revolution, agriculture was the neglected child of state economic planning. Prices were set by the planners to subsidize urban consumers. The state bought all surplus grain crops and assumed responsibility for their interstate distribution; inputs were similarly controlled, though their price was kept below world market prices. The plans devoted very limited resources to rural welfare or the expansion of agricultural production. Instead, the planners put their faith into the system of panchayati raj. By appealing to the traditional principle of collective village self-government, this system sought to organize villages and blocks of villages so as to manipulate them into adopting agricultural methods that would propel the peasantry into modernity. Far from energizing the peasants, however, the system was unable to prevent serious rural violence in some areas when envious members of other castes attacked and killed Untouchables who improved their lot. In other parts of India the poorest part of the peasantry remained apathetic. Moreover, efforts at creating cooperative farming proved unacceptable. 143

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India, however, did undergo land reform in the 195os. Each state followed its own system, and each state adopted different rules for exempting certain kinds of producers from the law, usually to protect and stimulate cash crop production and plantation agriculture. "Intermediary" (revenue-collecting) rights were abolished with compensation; ceilings on the amount of land individuals could own were established, but the limits were uneven and could be evaded; tenants' rights were established; land consolidation was permitted. Still, Congress remained internally divided on how far to push land reform, and the Indian Supreme Court handed down several decisions making redistribution more difficult. The Green Revolution provided a solvent of sorts. Now capitalism is growing in popularity among peasants who formerly were merely subsistence producers, and the expansion of production has made India food self-sufficient. These changes have not been felt equally strongly everywhere, and rural polarization exists. However, it also appears that, on the whole, the rich, middle, and poor peasants are by no means pitted against one another as bitterly as is true in many countries undergoing rapid modernization. Farmers remain an inchoate "demand group," not an organized interest group with clearly articulated objectives and central leadership. As such, however, these groups have gained the right to participate in fixing the prices of agricultural commodities, a weak form of corporatism organized labor never managed to gain for itself, and they successfully resisted the imposition of an income tax. New Delhi is increasingly concerned with continuing the striking transformation of the countryside. Although most of this was surely not anticipated by Jawaharlal Nehru's economic planners, it is impressive evidence of learning that all parties have now given agriculture and the peasantry a much more significant place in Indian development thinking.26 Nevertheless, during India's fiftieth birthday celebration in 1997, President K. P. Narayanan felt it necessary to call for new social activism to realize the promise of 1947 to eradicate inequality. Learning to Build Legitimate Political Institutions A fully rationalized nation-state possesses a coherent central administration, a broad consensus underlying its foreign policy, and agreement 26 The question whether and to what extent the Indian peasantry is becoming more or less polarized is highly contentious. I am persuaded that rural poverty is declining and that rural capitalism is developing, by Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), especially chaps. 12, 13. The ideological setting and early manipulation by Congress of the panchayati raj system is analyzed by Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship (New York: Wiley, 1964), chap. 7.

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about the role of national language (s). The desirability of having a state religion (or not) is a settled item in a fully rationalized state. The redistribution of wealth and the participation in policy making of organizations of the poorer strata of society are also accepted. Exclusively peaceful means of fashioning change prevail. I begin with a discussion of administrative coherence. The decline of administrative coherence. The administration of public policy in British India was the envy of every scholar who had read Max Weber on bureaucracy.27 Incorruptible civil servants—British as well as Indian— were recruited exclusively on the basis of merit. They spent their entire lives in government service supervising hundreds of thousands of lower officials, almost all of them chosen from among the colonized. The efficiency and skill of the Indian Civil Service was proverbial; however, the sharp limits on the fields and issues the British raj sought to administer made this sterling performance easier than was the task facing the same service, renamed Indian Administrative Service (IAS), after 1947. As mandated tasks grew—all a function of learning the necessity for continuous state activity to realize the objectives of the first postindependence government—so did the size of the service. As the service grew, both in New Delhi and in the states, the quality of personnel declined and centralized bureaucratic control became more lax. As the number of government tasks increased, so did the complexity of various ministries and the number of turf battles among them. Lower officials often became corruptible, and the police have on occasion mounted strikes, rioted, and failed to obey orders unhesitatingly. The armed forces, however, remained fully under civilian control and profess sufficient political neutrality as to be deployable against mutinous police units. The Indian judiciary began its independent life with a British reputation for aloofness from politics. At times the neutrality of the highest courts was questioned as the practice of judicial review succumbed to the pressures of the government of the day; at other times the Indian Supreme Court successfully asserted its power to review acts of the executive. Regardless of the degree of judicial activism, institutionalization remained in question. The number of riots increased from 33,000 per year in 1965 to 8o,000 in 1977. New Delhi has toppled more than one hundred state governments on flimsy pretexts in order to aid or hurt the party in power. The very identity of a state is sometimes put in question by interference from the center. This practice—particularly by means of armed forces sent by New Delhi—is exacerbated by the large number of long-lasting civil wars that have erupted in India over the years: in Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, and the Northeast. Consequently, it has been 27

This section draws heavily on Rudolph and Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi.

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difficult for India to develop a consistent policy either of centralism or of a firm division of powers along federal lines. Nevertheless, center and states have succeeded in working out cooperative fiscal and planning procedures to fashion jointly determined development projects. Derationalization seems evident in parliamentary and party politics as well. The niceties of Westminster procedures have been left way behind as the members of Parliament brawl openly and abuse the rules. And the Congress Party, that well-institutionalized electoral-and-patronage machine created by the founders of the nation, suffered abuse and neglect in the hands of Indira Gandhi as she sought to concentrate all power in herself and her close advisers. By the 199os the decay of Congress further contributed to derationalization. Having been a successful catch-all party that constituted the major link with the state (at central and local levels), its corruption and neglect of issues of concern to the regions and states left space for the rise of the BJP and of numerous regional as well as low-caste parties. The rapid succession of weak multiparty and minority governments since 1991 was the result.28 Other political organizations and actors were and remain weak. Some labor unions are manipulated by the government because wages until now have been administratively determined; there is little collective bargaining, nor is there an unrestricted right to organize. Farmers' unions, also impotent vis-à-vis the state until the 198os, are now being consulted on a routinized basis with respect to the determination of agricultural prices and marketing rules. Politics, though increasingly dominated by classes rather than castes as a self-conscious middle class develops in cities as well as in villages, does not resemble the interest group pluralism or corporatism of Western democracies because of the weaknesses of organized groups. Instead, politics is dominated by inchoate but often violent "demand groups" that coalesce on specific issues without being able to influence government and parties over the long haul. Since the parties cannot be described as consistently catering to specific classes or coalitions, no lasting interest aggregation at the center can occur. Moreover, caste identities are still 28 See Sunil Khilani, The Idea of India (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998). The trend during the 199os toward the organization of regional and lower-caste parties has been striking. All governments during the decade depended on their support, making for ideologically very heterogeneous coalition governments. Regional parties advocated cultural issues but often appealed to all castes; caste parties were interested in social and economic issues of redistribution. These trends are considered profoundly derationalizing by many Indian commentators. The poor are as likely now to vote as the rich; the percentage of poor who think voting makes a difference rose from 38 percent in 1971 to 51 percent in 1996, from 42 percent to 6o percent among low-caste persons. This trend is clearly resented by upper-caste persons, who disproportionately came to vote for the BJP in protest against affirmative action in higher education, which favors lower-caste and scheduled-caste students.

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considerable despite decades of affirmative action and increasing upward mobility. The foreign policy consensus is questioned. Until the outbreak of the United Nations war against Iraq in 1991, the foreign policy of India had not been controversial. Elites agreed on the content; mass public opinion did not question it—until riots and demonstrations in favor of Iraq shattered the consensus. Nonalignment in world affairs was invented by Jawaharlal Nehru, who declared it to be the foreign policy of India; to this he linked a certain mediating mission between Washington and Moscow and a special mission to hasten the termination of all colonial empires. He received little encouragement from Washington. Indian foreign policy soon after independence began to tilt toward Moscow; the Soviet Union became a supplier of arms and of other foreign aid. During the long Afghan civil war India tended to support the Soviets as Pakistan became the major backer of the Islamic insurgents; during the war in Vietnam India was a prominent backer of Vietnam against the United States. Of more immediate importance to its neighbors than these domestically uncontested positions, India declared itself to be the hegemonic power in South Asia, a claim backed by a powerful military. Unlike Pakistan's, India's armed forces have always been scrupulously apolitical even though they are used for the maintenance of internal security along with their major mission of deterring Chinese and Pakistani attacks. After India suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of China in 1962, the Nehru government began a major investment in modernizing and expanding the armed forces, which led to the initiation of a successful program to acquire nuclear weapons. By 1974 the world knew that India was able to manufacture nuclear weapons; in 1998 it demonstrated that they could also be deployed. The BJP had urged a policy of credible minimum nuclear deterrence all along and had rejected the treaty banning all nuclear tests. The party also endorses the creation of the usual triad of delivery vehicles for nuclear forces. Although India designed and manufactured the necessary parts on its own, the initial supply of plutonium was illicitly diverted from a Canadian-supplied reactor. India thereafter achieved a self-sufficient, state-owned arms industry that manufactures practically all weapons systems. Its army numbers over 1 million men (as contrasted with Pakistan's 400,000); it spends about $8 per person per year on military expenditures (as compared with Pakistan's $212); 3.3 percent of GNP is devoted to the military budget, whereas Pakistan's figure is twice as high; and about 18 percent of the budget goes to the military, as compared with Pakistan's 28 percent. Unresolved tensions with Pakistan over Kashmir triggered two major wars and one small conflict, as well as serious confrontations in the late 147

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198os and 199os that almost led to war. The tensions also feed the long-lived Muslim rebellion in Kashmir. India, in coming to the assistance of East Pakistani rebels in 1971, brought about Pakistan's loss of Bangladesh. Indian "peacekeepers" failed to end the civil war in Sri Lanka. Indian intervention had been applauded by public opinion initially, only to be opposed as heavy casualties were suffered in a vain attempt to defeat Sri Lankan Tamils. India refused for a long time to enter into agreements with Nepal and Bangladesh over regulating the Himalayan waters all three share, apparently so as not to lose leverage over these countries. A water-sharing agreement concluded with Bangladesh in 1997 remains shaky. India's readiness to use force to gain its external objectives was evident in the manner in which Hyderabad, Goa, Sikkim, and Kashmir were acquired, despite international legal pressure to the contrary. India remains slow to endorse multilateral South Asian arrangements and organizations, preferring to play the hegemonic role unhindered by international institutions. The Gulf War ended mass indifference and undermined the consensus, though not finally or fully; the growing importance of foreign trade makes membership in the World Trade Organization a contentious issue, pitting sectors enjoying state subsidies against export-prone industries. Many Indians sided with Iraq because of widespread resentment of the conservative Persian Gulf monarchies that employ Indian migrant labor, past Iraqi support for India, and sympathy for Muslims. Despite early indecision in New Delhi, India eventually endorsed the United Nations action. The government has not taken up the cause of Indian emigrants in such places as Fiji, Malaysia, and Guyana. Hindu nationalists, however, have done so with a vengeance. They differ from the government in advocating an even more aggressively hegemonic policy. Language policy as a learning experience. The multiple elite cultures of India express themselves symbolically and practically in linguistic form: ten major languages and a few minor ones give identity to literate and educated Indians using these tongues as their primary means of asserting personal status, if not to make their living. Pride in and defense of one's language is a matter of self-esteem and a matter of self-interest for members of the elite culture; it may be a matter of purely instrumental and even secondary concern for others whose status and interest are not uniquely identified with a specific language at all. Migrants and others who belong to the local folk culture are likely to choose a language to suit their perceived interests. The alleged primordial, quasi-genetic attachment to one's mother tongue is a myth. People and organizations "choose" a favored language to serve particular purposes; language choice is a manifestation of strategic decision 148

India Table 3-2. India: Language communities, 1989 (percent of population)

Hindi Telugu Marathi Bengali Tamil

39.9 8.2 8.o 7.8 7.o

Urdu Gujarati Kannada Malayalam All others

5.4 5.0 4.1 4.0 io.6

making.29 Thus, individuals are motivated to choose a language by strategic advantage with respect to wealth and status, provided the local cultural elite permits their assimilation. Nationalist ideologists use language to build a symbolic solidarity among the groups to whom they appeal, even though such a linguistic solidarity is in effect being invented as a result of political manipulation. Governments and governing parties seek to foster an "official" language in order to make communication possible among their subjects or to make them more receptive to official dogma. All these are rational objectives. In India they are especially salient because there is no natively spoken majority language and because the de facto language of communication at the center and between center and states has been English. A look at the linguistic statistics makes it clear why proposals to adopt Hindi as the official Indian language aroused such opposition in 1952 and 1966 (see table 3-2). Even though educated Hindi speakers needed to use English for professional and governmental communication with non-Hindi speakers, they experienced that need as perpetrating the hold of imperialism. Hence, they insisted that Hindi become the official language of the nation and that everyone study it along with the chief local language (the Indian constitution guarantees each major cultural group the right to use its own language in schools and government). This insistence was perceived as Hindu domination by Sikhs and by the roughly ioo million Muslims who remain in India after partition. It was resented as Sanskritic domination by the four Dravidian-language groups and by some Bengalis. The insistence by some Hindu nationalists that Hindi become the sole language for taking university and civil service examinations proved to be particularly divisive. Tolerance for multilingualism is achieved more easily 29 The language statistics come from Economic Intelligence Service, Basic Statistics, tables 1.7 and 1.8; the game-theoretic theory of language choice was developed by David Laitin in "Language Games," Comparative Politics (April 1988): 289-302; also see Brass, Language, Religion, and Politics; John G. Leonard, "Politics and Social Change in South India," Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies 1 (1967): 6o-77; Jyotirindra Das Gupta, "Community, Authenticity, and Autonomy,"Journal of Asian Studies (May 1997): 345-7o.

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when no alien language is imposed for a purpose seen as particularly salient by the public literate in minority languages. Nonetheless, it also appears as if the use of Hindi as a second language has increased since 1947 and the acceptance of English is increasingly challenged.3° India had to face this conundrum early. In 1952 a certain Potti Sriramulu fasted to death in Andhra Pradesh in order to force New Delhi to recognize the need to establish a Telugu-speaking state; this self-sacrifice set off severe rioting. The Congress leadership realized that any insistence on Hindi hegemony, on the separation of language from politics, was failing. It appointed a high-level commission to study the desirability of organizing India into language-based states. The commission reported in favor of the idea; the political map of India was redrawn by the mid197os to conform to the principle. The most recent to benefit from the reorganization were the peoples of the Northeast. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that each state still contains minorities speaking languages other than the official state language. What Congress had learned was that one key principle for creating a national identity—language— had to be sacrificed if the cost of establishing it was civil war, even if this implied the continued prestige role of English over Hindi and the cumbersome multilingual communication necessitated if English was not used. The lesson, however, was not learned by all everywhere, especially when language was merely a part of a larger problem of identity that also involved caste and/or religion. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar the Muslim minority for years agitated and organized for the recognition of Urdu as a second official language, not only for reasons of linguistic convenience but also to force the state government to implement the constitutional entitlement to minority language rights in education and the civil service. In Punjab, where Punjabi is a Sikh symbol of separate identity even though the non-Sikh speakers of Punjabi are more numerous, that language competes with Hindi, which is spoken by some of their Hindu neighbors. In the census of 1961 many Hindu Punjabi speakers indicated Hindi as their first language, not because it was true but because they wanted to assert the Hindu religio-cultural identity against the Sikhs. The 30 English served as a unifying element especially for the first generation of postindependence people in public and business life because almost all had been educated in private schools in which English was the language of instruction, whereas public schools used the local languages. Now, as the number of leaders educated in private schools declines, fewer leaders are fluent in English and the language is losing its role as an infra- and inter-elite identity building block, but no other language is taking its place. Note that the Shiv Sena, on increasing its political influence in Maharashtra in 1995, insisted on eliminating the use of English in public discourse in order to encourage its Marathi-only policy while fighting the influence of globalization and of multinational firms.

150

India extreme Sikh separatism with its demand for the creation of an independent state in Punjab (Khalistan), though antedating independence, came to fruition in the 198os in the form of full-scale civil war. When class, caste, religion, and language coalesce in a single bundle of aspirations and grievances in pitting groups against one another, it is usually too late to rely on peaceful processes of change to resolve the strife. The inference the Congress leaders drew from such conflicts was that solutions should not take the form of recognizing religion-based states, because that would not only deal a mortal blow to the liberal principle of secularism but also open a Pandora's box of territorial reorganization and even secession. How derationalizing are caste, class, and "ethnicity"? There are probably thousands of jatis in India. "It is a localized unit, centered in a group of villages. The jati has jurisdiction over the greater part of the individual's social behavior."31 Jatis were traditionally ruled by councils that could in principle punish their members. Inter-jati relations were governed by an ideology of religious hierarchy that ranked occupations, with "cleaner" occupations and social customs above less "clean" ones, and by an economic system in which occupational groups exchanged labor for payments in kind or cash from the group controlling the land. The ritual and the economic hierarchies might or might not coincide. In modern times groups of jatis were organized into caste associations with elected officers. Apart from performing social welfare services for their members, these associations lobby and receive patronage from politicians, mobilize voters at election time, and—most important—represent upwardly mobile jatis in their efforts to become more like members of the twiceborn castes. As long as the solidarity of association members does not covary with class, language, or religion, however, these associations have not had a derationalizing effect because there are too many of them, constantly reconstituting themselves as new economic and skill groups. Castes or jatis are only now asserting a distinct political role in the form of new political parties. The non-Brahmin movements found in many states, but most prominently in Tamil Nadu, illustrate what can happen when caste does covary with economic status. There were only two castes in that state; of the population, 3 percent were Brahmins, 20 percent were Untouchables, and the remainder were a group of jatis from various class and status levels indiscriminately labeled "Sudras" by British officials. Government posts went very disproportionately to Brahmins because they were first to embrace Western education. Elite "Sudra" resentment led to the formation 31 Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), p. 61; also see pp. 61-64, 101-5, 110-21; Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984), especially chap. 6.

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in the 192os of the Justice Party, which promoted an ideology of nonBrahmin unity and was determined to remove the Brahmin caste from political power, a task in which it succeeded very well. The party's successors, especially the DMK, stress the importance of the Tamil language and the Dravidian cultural heritage; the anti-Brahmin movement is also antiHindi and anti-Sanskrit. Until it was appeased by concessions from New Delhi, the DMK espoused the secession of the Tamil nation from India. A somewhat similar situation exists in Punjab. Sikh separatism is partly fueled by the fears of one group of Sikhs—the Jats, a high-status peasant and warrior group that opposes and resents relatively recent converts to the Sikh religion, former Untouchables who support the Congress rather than Sikh parties. These Jats are especially strongly identified with asserting a religio-linguistic identity different from Hindu culture and hostile to Indian nationalism. Caste and class are overlapping categories in India. The Indian constitution labels Untouchables "scheduled castes" and mandates special compensatory measures to raise their status. It also recognizes "scheduled tribes," the isolated and often nomadic peoples who are thought to have survived as separate groups after the Aryan conquest. They, too, benefit from special aid programs. Subsequently, the government reluctantly recognized the category of "other backward classes" to connote groups whose status and living standard marked them as disadvantaged relative to elite castes, though they are not necessarily of the lower castes. Estimates of the total of all these groups range from 19 percent to 32 percent of the population of India; scheduled castes alone accounted for 15 percent in 1971! In a clear act of adaptation, Congress decided soon after independence to launch special programs to head off possible future discontent. Scheduled castes and tribes are guaranteed a fixed percentage of appointments to state and central civil services, reserved seats in legislatures, and a fixed share of scholarships and admissions to universities. Only in 1976 was private industry compelled to eliminate discrimination against members of these groups. Other backward groups enjoy these quotas only at the state level, though the struggle to generalize them in Union institutions continues. The Indian judiciary, however, has whittled away at these entitlements. Quotas cannot exceed 5o percent of the available openings. There is widespread resentment of the "other backward groups" category and continuing controversy over who should be included. "Sons of the Soil" movements have arisen in some places to protect the rights of local people against the enjoyment of these entitlements by migrants. In 1992 these sentiments erupted into major rioting at some universities as high-caste students protested the growing extension of protection for 152

India those of lower caste or class. It remains unclear whether the adaptation contributed to rationalization or to its opposite. Challenges to Secularism The year 1992 was a bad one for Indian secularism. A mob of servants of the god Ram, in the name of purifying Hinduism, stormed and destroyed the Babri mosque in Ayodhya while the police stood by; this took place in U.P., then ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and was followed by the murder of hundreds of Muslims elsewhere in India, persecutions apparently masterminded by the RSS. A graffito at the time proclaimed, "A traitor to Lord Rama is a traitor to the nation." Hindu militants picture Islam and Christianity as global conspiracies against Hindu culture, mortal dangers to South Asia that must be ruthlessly exposed. Muslims call attention to atrocities in Bosnia as a rallying cry to mobilize adherents in the defense of global Muslim interests, much as during the days of the Khilafat. The long-lasting Muslim rebellion in Kashmir has a religious as well as a political component. In 1983 a secularist Congress government sought to end the Sikh revolt in Punjab by seizing the central symbol of Sikhism, the Golden Temple of Amritsar. The fact that it was being used as a military base by the rebels underlines the unity of religion and politics among the Sikh extremists.32 Is the secular state in peril? Hinduism can be made to encompass secularism. "In India, religion is like an axis that transforms as it turns, propelling society through history. Religion's main expressions—the Sikh, Jain, Hindu, Buddhist, Sant and Muslim traditions—radiate like spokes, connecting with the social in one great wheel of the universe."33 The core elements of Hindu thought— dharma, karma, and bhakti—animate that wheel. They encompass the work of Gandhi and of Nehru, all of Indian history. Aurobindo Ghose proclaimed, "Nationalism is not a mere political program; nationalism is a religion that has come from God."34 Even a state dedicated to an 32 This section draws primarily on these works: Marc Galanter, Law and Society in Modern India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989); Galanter, Competing Equalities; Franklin A. Presler, Religion under Bureaucracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Donald E. Smith, India as a Secular State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963); Donald E. Smith, ed., South Asian Politics and Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966); Myron Weiner and Mary F. Katzenstein, India's Preferential Policies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); Lionel Caplan, ed., Studies in Religious Fundamentalism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), chaps. 6, 8; Stephen P. Cohen, The Indian Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971); Stephen P. Cohen, "The Military and Indian Democracy," in Atul Kohli, ed., India's Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp• 99-143" T. N. Madan, "Religion in India," Daedalus (Fall 1989): 115. 34 Quoted in ibid., p. 137.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

even-handed neutrality toward the various religions is consistent with this concept, if only it had not rejected religion in favor of science. Thus think many Indian intellectuals not wholly at ease with secular modernity (read: Western values and institutions, including liberal individualism). Hindutva ideologists carried this attitude several steps further toward a fullfledged Hindu communalism. Yet it is wrong to characterize Hindu nationalist thought as unabashedly restorative-syncretist. The primordial Hinduism taught by its modern founders, V. D. Savarkar and M. S. Golwalkar, is laden with restorative themes; yet the RSS professes an integralist nationalism, and the BJP wavers between reformist syncretism and liberalism. Some Congress leaders felt close to the reformist strand of the argument, as revealed in their insistence that the famous Somnath Temple be restored at public expense. Minimally, all devotees of Hindutva agreed that India will disintegrate unless its Bharati essence is reasserted and cherished, its geographical unity and ancient cultural roots made more prominent. Whether this demand also includes enthroning Hinduism-as-religion was rarely made explicit; the state was and is to be strengthened by reforming, but not abolishing, its secular nature. Savarkar wanted more: to be Indian required accepting "Hindustan" as a holy land, not merely a fatherland. So did Gowalkar; he wrote of an Indian national essence that was expressed in its Hindu religiosity. Deendayal Upadhyaya and V. P. Varma made an allencompassing humanism of Hindutva rooted in their interpretation of the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita. Thus nationalist politics was subsumed and justified by theology.35 These sources are still in evidence. The BJP claimed that this ancient nation evolved a world-view based on the motto . . . let the entire world be happy thousands of years before any League of Nations or United Nations was thought of to avoid global strife. The Indian nation evolved this grand vision not by marching its armies and conquering the rest and offering peace; but by the inner-directed pursuit of universal values by the Rishis living in the forests and mountains of India.36 Bharat encompasses all religions found on its soil. Modern India, "the world's oldest cradle of civilization," is destined to become a "benign global power" that must "save the world from the gathering civilizational crisis." Far from opposing secularism, "Hindutva 35 Between 198o and 1985 the BJP officially subscribed to Gandhian socialism in its policies regarding economic development, at a time when its nationalism was still more distinctly syncretist than it would become. Later it espoused a mercantilist economic nationalism friendly to capitalism. By 1999 it stood for untrammeled free enterprise and deregulation. The BJP retains its attachment to "integral humanism," including improved rights for women and children. 36 This and subsequent quotations in this paragraph come from the BJP's 1998 election manifesto.

' 54

India accepts as sacred all forms of belief and worship." However, it strongly condemns concessions to ethnic, religious, and regional groups' demands. It also favors constitutional reforms that would strengthen the Union government while increasing the autonomy of state governments. It fears globalization trends in economics and business. While favoring private business over state planning and regulation, the BJP advocates strong measures for protecting domestic firms and agriculture to keep multinationals at bay. It also favors land distribution to poor peasants, rural education, rural cooperative movements, and the prohibition of cow slaughter. "India's national interest must be protected and pursued more vigorously. . . . A nation as large and capable as ourselves must make its impact felt on the world arena." Compromise with Pakistan over Kashmir was rejected in principle; yet Prime Minister Vajpayee sojourned to Lahore in 1999 as a gesture for peace and negotiation. Pakistan responded with new attacks on Kashmir. The subsequent Indian victory did much to arouse national pride and to cast the prime minister as a prophet of reconciliation, betrayed by a perfidious enemy. Events were televised in most villages, leading to many rural demonstrations of patriotic fervor otherwise not common in India. The BJP also wants insurgencies in the Northeast to be curbed with better development programs, as well as improved mechanisms of repression, and also with a more stringent program to keep out Bangladeshi migrants and deny them citizenship. Untouchability is declared to be a crime against humanity. An enlarged program of special assistance to the poorest classes is to be launched which uses only income as a criterion of eligibility, not communal affiliation. This is "positive secularism: justice for all, appeasement of none." The BJP combines a thoroughly modern program for governance with a justification that invokes Indian traditions, touching lightly on Hindu religious themes by clothing them in historical-cultural garb. The BJP is the carrier of the "modernity of tradition," mediating between modern institutions and traditional values and symbols. Does BJP define a reformist syncretism or does it offer a cover for liberalism?37 Religion and law. India's constitution guarantees all persons the free exercise of any religion, even though it also reserves to the state the power to regulate the secular activities in which religious organizations engage. All religious organizations are guaranteed the right to maintain 37 See Baxi and Parekh, Crisis and Change, pp. 303-16. The BJP objected to Sonia Ghandi's Italian origin, arguing that not being culturally Hindu disqualified her leadership. Over the protest of many ministers, the BJP also put pressure on state education ministers to "indianize, nationalize and spiritualize" school curricula. San Francisco Chronicle, October 23, 1998.

155

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

their own institutions and to be entirely self-governing in religious matters. The trouble with secularism as defined by the constitution is, of course, that the line between the secular and the religious remains very unclear. Hindu nationalists, in particular, have always argued that secularism guarantees the autonomy of minority religions but discriminates against devout Hindus. The state accepts Muslim, Sikh, and Christian civil law, the rules dealing with marriage and property, even when these differ from the general civil code. Hindus, however, are compelled to follow the civil code enacted for them by Parliament. When the Supreme Court ruled that Muslim women obtaining a divorce are entitled to alimony—a departure from the former principle of the autonomy of non-Hindu communities— Muslims rioted and Parliament acted to overrule the Court. Hindu nationalists complain of a double standard because the civil law enacted by Parliament in fact violates many traditional precepts of Hindu religious law and subjects Hindus, but not members of other religions, to the authority of the secular state. Certain activities in temples, and especially the right of access to temples, are regulated by law; cow slaughter is prohibited in some states but not in others; control over temple funds is regulated; the state has mandated elected boards to administer them. Hindu zealots, however, have demanded that conversions be banned. The BJP has made itself the advocate of "genuine secularism," which does not favor non-Hindus. Correlates of minority discontent. Muslims in general seem content with their status as long as New Delhi does not challenge it. Kashmiri Muslims, however, deeply resent India's denial of their right to self-determination. The story is different for Sikhs. Their dissatisfaction was triggered by religio-cultural concerns and by economics; the politics of secession emerged only later. The Green Revolution in the Punjab had the result of making unemployable many of the young peasants who are among the most fervent of the Sikhs. Other Sikhs seemed to resent the growing prosperity of their Hindu neighbors. The center was seen as "discriminating" against them because it rationed the irrigation water needed for the health of Sikh agriculture; the center was also condemned for not favoring Sikhs in public service. The leadership of the Akali Dal Party, which had long spoken for Sikh interests, was increasingly seen as "corrupted" because of compromises with Congress. Violence and distrust grew until a general pattern of genocide came to punctuate the Punjab countryside. Once again, religion and insecurity about economic status combined to spawn a secessionist identity. Threats to secularism can be contained as long as the dissident religious-communal movements remain local and small and as long as the center refuses to countenance the creation of religion-based states. 156

India Table 3-3. India: Degree of rationalization 1947-69

Political succession constitutional Education consensual Consensus on state/religion relations Civil religion exists Consensus on status of minority cultures Official language Income redistribution Participation, labor Participation, farmers Taxes paid Foreign policy consensus Fighting wars Administrative cohesion Peaceful change Legitimacy Total (%)

yes yes yes no yes no no no no some yes yes yes yes yes 6o

1970-79 10o-99

yes yes yes no yes some some no no some yes yes yes no no

yes some some no yes yes yes no some some some yes yes no yes 63

57

Hindu nationalism is neither local nor small. It poses the most powerful threat to secularism in the history of independent India despite professions of "genuine secularism." The RSS is neither democratic nor liberal. Arya Samaj "unity processions featured a portrait of Mother India in the form of a goddess and large urns containing water from the holy river, Ganges."38 As long as these manifestations remain purely symbolic, the BJP's attachment to parliamentary democracy will keep secularism intact. How Rationalized Is India? Evidence on rationalization is given in table 3-3. In some respects, especially when contrasted with Pakistan, the score understates national 38 Daniel Gold, "Organized Hinduism: From Vedic Truth to Hindu Nation," in Martin Marty and R. S. Appleby, eds., Fundamentalism Observed, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 574. Percentage of Indians believing that: There is only one absolute god The soul is separate from the body People's daily lives need not be governed by religious commandments

76 50 45 Religiosity in India, as measured by this index, is much less than in many other countries. World Opinion Update (May/June 1981): 64. 1.57

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

coherence: land redistribution was a successful rationalizing experience, as is firm civilian control over the armed forces. India today emerges as more rationalized than ever before despite its great travail, even though, comparatively, the rationalization score is at the lower end of the scale of successful nation-statehood. How can we account for this relative success in the formation of a nation-state despite these deep-seated and persistent sources of friction? How can even a bruised sense of national identity survive in the maelstrom of Indian identities? Jawaharlal Nehru was very realistic about the precariousness of Indian national identity when he recognized in 1947 that his preferred formula of "democracy, secularism, socialism" was not then consensual; obviously, it is not now fully consensual even though the overall cohesion of India has improved a little. India has been saved by the fact that the divisions among its people, though numerous, are noninclusive; almost every individual belongs to more than one primary group and derives his or her identity from multiple sources. These multiple identities are not usually aggregated under a single master identity; they remain separate and separable. The result is an enormous network of cross-cutting social cleavages that inhibit the formation of superordinate claims to exclusive identities. Groups that do subject themselves to an exclusive identity—the Arya Samaj, the RSS, Khalsa Sikhs, and separatist Muslims—challenge this order. The extreme factionalism of Indian life, and the personalism with which it is expressed at the local level, further strengthens the logic of cross-cutting cleavages as preservers of the liberal state.39 There certainly has been institutional learning since 1947, especially since 1984, but a great deal remains to be done to keep chaos at bay. The balance favors the triumph of liberal democracy, but delicately and unreliably. Secularism has been confirmed; democratizing institutions have been created; dissident forces were converted to support the regime; and even the BJP has bowed to the logic of centrist coalition building. Secularism is strengthened by the recasting of the mythic origins of all Indian religions on state television, not just Hinduism. It has been symbolically reinforced by the ban on religious symbols in election campaigns. But secularism was weakened when the values of a single community—mostly the Muslim—are being expressed at the expense of 39 Young, Politics of Cultural Pluralism, p. 312; Rudolph and Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi, pp. 40-47. The fact that the very notion of "Hindu" remains contested in public discourse prevents Hindutva's becoming a salient marker of collective identity. It is just as subject to the logic of cross-cutting cleavages as other identity markers. See T. K. Oommen, The Shifting Salience of Religion in the Construction of Nationalism (Berkeley: Institute of International and Area Studies, 1992), Working Paper 5.3, Conference on Nation, National Identity, Nationalism.

158

India general legal rules, as was the case when Rajiv Gandhi banned Salmon Rushdie 's Satanic Verses. Institutional reforms favoring democracy are impressive. Corruption enjoys less toleration than earlier, perhaps because there is more of it. Congress banned its former prime minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao, from running because of his having been tainted. Congress also apologized to the Muslim community for the destruction of the Babri Mosque. All parties are strengthening internal democratic procedures. The autonomy of states, especially in fiscal matters, is being increased at the expense of the Union. There is a backlash against the practice of presidential and emergency center rule in the states, yet federal troops took over U.P. in 1997 to keep the successful BJP from taking office. The military continues to be strictly controlled by its civilian bureaucracy. The practice of segregating units by region and caste is being diluted; the officer corps is being opened to lower strata of society; all states are given a quota for new recruits, not merely the "martial races" (mostly Rajputs and Punjabis) favored in the past. New participatory practices are emerging in local and development administration that associate voluntary groups with local, state, and federal bureaucracies in joint decision making. Yet all this takes place against a background of violence inconsistent with democracy and liberalism. The following all occurred in the 199os: affirmative action, which constitutes evidence of learning to overcome discontent, elicited violent negative responses of higher-caste strata; the number of deaths incurred by mob action and bombings at election time was considerable; lower-caste members rioted in Maharashtra because they thought a monument to their hero, B. R. Ambedkar, was being desecrated; upper-caste landlords massacred lower-caste peasants in Bihar when they demanded rural reforms. These practices are evidence of widespread disregard for the rules of peaceful change; they certainly endanger the survival of democracy. Nevertheless, many parties have learned that governing requires a willingness to join the forces at the center of the political spectrum. This lesson has been learned even by parties that once stood for secession and revolution. The Communist Party of India (but not the Maoist Naxalites) has governed in West Bengal and in Kerala, alone and in coalition with many other parties. It is considered an acceptable member of Union coalitions. Many strong regional parties, such as in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Assam, have done the same and have given up whatever secessionist-nationalist beliefs they once entertained. This process weakens the divisive force of unresolved ideological and cultural tensions because it brings about the aggregation of myriad local centers through compromise, thus containing the destructive forces of multiculturalism. 159

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Even the BJP exhibits this behavior. Its prime minister, after forming his first government, announced to the nation—while generously quoting the Hindu sages and their sacred writings—"We are all of one clan, and there is but one God. In the Indian perspective, this is the only valid meaning of secularism."40 The BJP's India is determined to be a modern industrial nation able to compete in the global marketplace. Hence autarky-seeking policies will be toned down in favor of measures to strengthen private capitalist innovation. Its economic policy as well as measures for uplifting vulnerable segments of society, especially women and children, would satisfy any Western social democrat. The commitment to high-technology innovation would gladden the heart of Silicon Valley. Nothing was said about building a new temple at Ayodhya or about protecting cows. What, then, happened to Hindutva? The prime minister ended his address to the nation by invoking Lord Rama's construction of the bridge across the Ocean of Challenge and by appealing to all Indians to show the same dedication and patience in their service to the motherland. 4° India News, April 16-3o, 1998, pp. 5-7. In 1997 the RSS and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra severed their relations with the BJP because of opposition to the BJP's drift toward the political center, but the RSS retains a strong influence over the BJP-led center government.

1 6o

CHAPTER FOUR

Brazil

If the creation of a vibrant nation-state was the objective of the fathers of Brazilian independence, they started on the wrong foot. There was neither a central state nor a resounding cry for national self-determination in 1822. The conditions of our Type D prevailed. Secession from Portuguese colonial rule was masterminded by a European-descended elite whose members did not agree on what alternative they wanted. Social mobilization was frozen at a very low level, though the mobilizedunassimilated, while few in number, were very articulate. These conditions changed very little for more than a hundred years. Brazil's march toward nation-statehood did not begin in earnest until 193o, and then it proceeded under conditions conforming to Type A. A group of mobilized but dissatisfied people wrested control of the weak state from the old elite and proceeded to build a strong central structure, inspired by an integralist sense of national purpose and national identity. After a short liberal interval, integralism rationalized the Brazilian economy. Eventually, another transition to liberal institutions took place under conditions of considerable ideological fragmentation. Brazil's political rationalization remains incomplete. Its elites learned to create functioning institutions but have been less adept thus far in learning to fashion consistent liberal political practices. For outstanding research assistance, I am indebted primarily to Wayne Sandholtz, Arun Swamy, and Peter Houtzager. Peter Kingstone and Anne Clunan also helped a great deal, as did a magnificent term paper by Wendy Hunter. Thomas Bruneau, Arun Swamy, and Peter Houtzager read the entire manuscript and saved me from many errors. I have no one to blame but myself for the remaining ones. 161

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS The story is instructive in several ways. It shows that rationalization can occur as a result of a mixture of systematic learning, adaptation, and inspiration by ideology; the three modes of change are not mutually exclusive at all. Systematic collective learning may be a sufficient condition of progressive change but not a necessary one. Nor is there a need for liberal nationalism-as-rationalizer. Learning, combined with ideology and adaptation, took place under two integralist-nationalist regimes that made major contributions to rationalizing the country. All this occurred while Brazilians declined to subscribe to a strongly etched sense of national purpose and national identity. Rationalization proceeded just the same. None of these features predict the triumph of liberal nationalism, nor do they foreclose it. SECESSIONIST BRAZIL: No STATE, No NATION (1815-1930) The separate Portuguese provinces of eastern South America united for the first time in a single entity as the Kingdom of Brazil in 1815 and declared themselves independent of the mother country in 1822. They then called themselves the Empire of Brazil, and Portugal's crown prince became their emperor. Actually, the provinces had been autonomous since 18o8 when the king and his court were moved to Rio de Janeiro by the British navy to escape the French occupation of Portugal. The king made efforts to centralize and strengthen his administration, relying largely on Europeans instead of the Brazil-born notables who had been used to run things before; he also consented to make his American provinces economic satellites of Britain. These measures resulted in a good deal of local resentment, eventuating in the northern rebellion of 1817, which sought to create republics independent of Lisbon as well as of Rio de Janeiro. By 1822, after the exiled king returned to Europe and as the liberal constitutional convention in Lisbon sought to reestablish legal links with its cousins and descendants in the big former colony across the Atlantic, three distinct parties formed in Brazil. One, concentrated in the north, wanted to rejoin Portugal on a basis of constitutional equality. Another, led by Jose Bonifacio de Andrade e Silva and his brothers, centered in Sao Paulo and Rio and composed largely of royal officeholders and their retainers, wanted an autonomous Brazilian monarchy; but they opposed any change in social and economic structure and showed no interest in democracy. A third, centered in the Masonic lodges of the seaboard cities, wanted to prevent the reestablishment of ties with Portugal in order to create a republic with political equality for the tiny middle class. Measures by the Lisbon assembly, misinterpreted in Brazil as determina162

Brazil tion to reestablish the old colonial relationship, resulted in the declaration of independence.' The full realization of independence required several years of fighting in the north as well as the suppression of a number of mutinies and local revolts. There was no sense of Brazilian nationhood, no nationalist ideologies, no consensus on the future of the country. Secessionist Brazilians thought of themselves as Portuguese experiencing an unforgivable insult at the hands of their relatives in Europe. The population consisted of an ethnically very heterogeneous two to three million people.2 The few cities were mostly on the coast; there were no roads to link them. Very little of the interior had been settled, though mamelucos, peasants of mixed white and Native American blood, had penetrated deep into the Southwest. The countryside elsewhere was dotted with huge estates whose slave-owning planters constituted a leisured and aristocratic European society. What there was of an immigrant peasantry, however, lacked the submissiveness of its European ancestors as it penetrated the western wilderness, the sertao. Civil war remained endemic until the ascension to the throne of the "good emperor" Dom Pedro II in 1 842 •

Liberalism without Nationalism Dom Pedro II ruled, until the establishment of the republic in 1889, over an administratively centralized parliamentary monarchy. It was based on a restricted suffrage; its citizens enjoyed all the standard civil liberties—in constitutional theory. Social mobilization remained extremely limited, the professional classes very small, the local educational facilities rudimentary. Power in parliament alternated between two political "parties," clubs of notables that could hardly be distinguished from each other ideologically, until in the 187os they were joined by a third party committed to the creation of a republic and the abolition of slavery. The emperor skillfully mediated among these groups, thus facilitating limited I follow the account of Roderick J. Barman, Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). He shows that prevalent political loyalties and identities were attached to local patrias, provinces or segments of provinces. 2 Precise population figures do not exist. It is estimated that 40 percent of the population were African slaves, many of them recently imported and not yet part of the local culture. Another 25 percent were free blacks and mulattoes, many of them assimilated into Portuguese culture. Whites accounted for no more than 15 percent, as did mestizos (mixtures of whites and Native Americans, mostly in the Amazon region), who were partly assimilated into Portuguese culture. The remainder were Native Americans living outside the area effectively controlled by Portuguese settlers. See ibid., pp. 15-16. By 1872 the slave population amounted to 15.2 percent, but in certain provinces it was much higher: Rio, 32.3; Espirito Santo, 27.6; Maranhao, 20.9; Sao Paulo, 18.7. Armin K. Ludwig, ed., Brazil: A Handbook of Historical Statistics (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1985), p. 54. 163

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

peaceful change and very slow development. Brazil resembled a social pyramid of which only the tip was socially, politically, and economically active. Rationalization was incomplete and superficial. Local notables controlled local power, dominated the local administration, furnished the electors and the elected deputies. They also held the local administrative offices after 1889 and dispensed justice. Most of them were planters growing sugar for export, though coffee cultivation using free European immigrant labor became important toward the end of the nineteenth century. There was no civil service until the 187os. Many Brazilians had a guilty conscience about the institution of slavery, especially after 1815, when France and Britain exerted unrelenting pressure in suppressing the slave trade and urging the emancipation of slaves. French and British culture more and more provided the role models for educated Brazilians during the nineteenth century. There was an active and increasingly successful abolitionist movement. The law governing slavery was progressively reformed under the empire, so that by the 187os the children of slaves were considered free. The emperor's final abolition of slavery in 1888 was one reason for his overthrow at the hands of the military and its planter allies. The system was called coronelismo because the chief local notable usually held the title of colonel in the local militia. Under the empire he had to deal with the centralized imperial bureaucracy. The republic, however, introduced a constitution under which the power of the central government was reduced to that of a mere confederation. The colonels became the real government because of the de facto formula that defined Brazilian governance between 1889 and 1930: the leaders of the states of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo agreed to alternate in occupying the federal presidency; the colonels in charge of all the other states, in exchange for consenting to this arrangement, were left almost entirely to their own devices. The states became almost sovereign. Unlike the situation elsewhere in Latin America, the military was of no political significance until it rose to prominence in the Paraguayan war (1865-7o), which made the aristocratic officers "defenders of the fatherland" and the predominantly black, illiterate, often impressed, enlisted men into respected warriors. The military, protesting low budgetary allocations and other "slights," actively participated in toppling the monarchy. But since the states, under the republic, had their own armed forces, they objected to a strong federal army and therefore opposed the introduction of conscription. Things began to change at the debut of the twentieth century. Rivalry with Argentina and the poor performance of the army in suppressing a major peasant revolt triggered the systematic professionalization of the officer corps by means of French training missions. Conscription was in164

Brazil troduced in 1916 (though never rigorously applied as a system of obligatory national service for all), partly as a way to democratize Brazilian society, to make good citizens and patriots of people not yet socially mobilized.3 The states continued to maintain their own armed forces, however, which on occasion fought the federal army when it sought to enforce federal writ against recalcitrant local authorities. Conscription facilitated the onset of politicization while professionalization Frenchstyle did not prevent it: by the 1920S the younger ranks of the Brazilian officer corps were in the forefront of social revolution. They initiated the revolt of the lieutenants (tenentes), which helped bring down the First Republic in 193o and start in earnest the building of a Brazilian state and nation. Still, neither the military nor any other central institution was strong enough to make the Brazilian federation a credible state under the First Republic. The administrative structures of the states dwarfed the federal administration in Rio. State budgets were much larger than the federal. State militias sometimes bested the federal military in continuing civil unrest. The provisions of the democratic constitution were commonly ignored. The civil religion of the empire was Comtian positivism with a veneer of British-style parliamentarism, not Brazilian nationalism.' After 1870 it began to compete with the an antislavery liberalism still eager to protect the status of the wealthy: it provided the content of the First Republic's constitution. Positivists venerated science as the guide to social progress, though there were practically no institutions that taught or practiced natural science. Brazil's official slogan was and remains "Ordem e Progresso," order and progress, the core positivist theme. Positivists favored governance by a technocracy of the educated, not democracy or liberalism, though they also endorsed freedom of opinion. They embraced an evolutionary cosmopolitanism that actively opposed nationalism, including Brazil's. In the 188os Julio de Castilhos led a positivist movement that he combined with the gaucho tradition of Rio Grande do Sul, which in turn influenced social reform at the federal and state levels. The liberals, at the end of the 188os, abolished slavery, broadened the franchise, 3 The person who articulated the democratizing and nationalizing role of the military was Olavio Bilac. See Main Rouquie, The Military and the State in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 95. Also pp. 46, 62, 88, 8o-81 , and 112. 4 These majority views were lampooned by a small group of literary people who did profess some nationalist sentiments. Supported by the creation in 1838 of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute, designed to foster a sense of national identity, they celebrated the virtues of the indigenous Indians, mocked the blind imitation of European customs, and advocated racial intermarriage. These arguments became more intense and widespread after the fall of the monarchy when attempts were made to study and admire indigenous cultures. Silvio Romero, Euclides da Cunha, and Graca Aranha were important contributors to this movement.

165

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

established federalism, and brought about the full separation of church and state. Frozen Society, Deceptive Rationalization Brazilian conditions changed very little during the first century after independence; the developmental path resulted in a placid, very hierarchical, and thoroughly cosmopolitan culture at the elite level, a culture that eschewed a sense of nationhood while regretting its inability to emulate fully its European exemplars. At the mass level, however, changes slowly accumulated that, by the 192os, were to expose the fragility of the country's rationalization. Tables 4-1 and 4-2 show an appreciable rise in the degree of modernity and of social mobilization. Heavy immigration from Europe began, along with the first signs of industrialization. Many new institutions of higher education were created, offering avenues to upward social mobility other than the practice of law, such as medicine, engineering, and the military. Table 4-3 shows how deceptive relatively high rationalization scores can be when they simply highlight the contentment of the small elite. In 19oo Brazil could hardly be considered modern. Only 2 percent of its population was engaged in manufacturing, and only 5 percent of the manufacturing sector involved metallurgy. There was a mere 15,000 km of railroad track, almost no paved roads, a tiny merchant marine, no universities, and no public school system. Social mobilization was in its infancy still: only 3 percent of the adult population voted, 85 percent were illiterate, and very few children attended school. The rulers of the First Republic had to come to grips with the end of slavery and the consequences of the mass enfranchisement provided— in theory—by the new constitution. Literacy requirements were used as one way to limit mass voting, as literacy stood at a mere 25 percent in 1920; the reinforcement of coronelismo in rural areas was another way to limit mass democracy. The unchanging sway of the local planters guaranteed that their candidates were elected and that the spokesmen for the urban voters were not able to seize control of the government. In short, the newly enfranchised who passed the literacy test, black and white, were mobilized for political action but not assimilated into the institutions of power. The urban middle class was kept from exercising a meaningful role by chicanery. Trade unions, except for churchsponsored mutual aid societies, remained illegal. Illicit unions, both Marxist and anarchist, sprang up after 190o, mostly organized by recent European immigrants, but their revolutionary commitment caused them to be repressed. 166

Table 4-1. Brazil: Indicators of modernization

Population (millions)a

1870

1900

1920

1 950

1960

1970

10

18

27

52

71

18

29

93 9.5b

Government expenditure as % of GDP' % of economicallyd active population in Manufacturing Commerce Transport Agriculture Number of universities'

1 47

39.5

(1947)

11

23

5 53

9 4 44

23

11

29

51

20

19 25 15 8

17

4

2

2

9 5 3 66

g 7 4 6o

9 8

— 56

3 1 5o

o

0

2

University degrees (% by field)£ Law Medicines Engineering Military Economics Liberal arts

36 15 9 4 —

22

5 12

14 3 11 15

55,575

21,231

15,753h

( 1977)

(1994) 720,000

Membership in social security system (thousands)'

41 (1925)

3,415

Number of tractors in used

1,706

8,372

61,345

157,346

89

75

67

4 —

17 11

7

9 10 6

62 (1975) 18

5

—

28,553

36,681

38,287

29,855

Status of land occupation (% of hectares) k By owner By renter By squatter By administration Railroads (km track)!

1 990

15,316

20

30,206

(1977)

Highways paved (km)m

910 (1930)

N/A

13,357

71,117 (1976)

142,919 (1996)

Motor vehicles (thousands)"

75 (1925)

409

1,036

7,313 (1976)

13,070

285

569

1,300

5,613 (1977)

6,145 (1986)

Merchant marine (tonnage, thousands)"

128 (1908)

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Table 4-I (continued) 1870

Value of manufacturing output (%)P Food

1900

1920

1950

1960

1970

3o

32

32 (1949) 19 (1949) 8 (1949)

24

16

(1907)

Textiles

23 (1907) 5 (1907)

Metal

27 3

(1959) 13 (1959) 11 (1959)

1990

8 14 (1974)

NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained. a Robert J. Havinghurst and Roberto Moreira, Society and Education in Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1965), p. 2o; Larry Diamond, Juan L. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Politics in Developing Countries (Boulder, Colo.: Lynn Rienner, 1995), p. 143. b James Wilkie, ed., Statistical Abstract of Latin America, vol. 32 (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin America Center Publications, 1996), table 906 and table 905 respectively. • Philippe Schmitter, Interest Conflict and Political Change in Brazil (Stanford: Standford University Press, 1971), p. 246. d Ludwig, Brazil, pp. 137-41. e Ibid., p. 122. • Ibid., p. 131. g Includes dentistry, pharmacology, veterinary med., nursing. h Annucirio Estatistico do Brasil (1995), pp. 2-151. ' Ludwig, Brazil, p. 179. J Ibid., p. 194. k Ibid., p. 195. ' Ibid., p. 242. m Ibid., p. 252. n Ibid., p. 253. o Ibid., p. 258. P Ibid., p. 276.

Independence and Rationalization without Nationalism Brazil achieved a deceptive state of integration without a national myth because its Europe-aping elite did not seek one. Moreover, Brazil's racial composition proved to be a source of collective anxiety that impeded nationalist thinking until the 19205. Its marginal Catholicism and weak church obviated the development of an aggressive secular nationalism. Only its foreign policy, after 1900, became an object of national pride. During the colonial period the elite worshiped the idea of the special land that was Brazil, not its people. Its wealth and resources, rather than any special mission of its settlers, were elements of enormous pride. In fact, the settlers were sometimes blamed for not working hard enough to exploit the potential of the land. The only other expression of a special 168

Table 4-2. Brazil: Indicators of social mobilization 1890 Voting participation' Literacy°

1910

1930

3 15

1950

1960

1970

1990

16

18

24

48

25

43

53

6o

79

Economically active pop. in agriculture

69

63

52

44

23

Urban pop. as % of total"

25 (1910)

45

5o

56

75

2,085

3,784

7,477

12,812

28,944

90

374

868

4,086

3,499

14

51

96

430

1,540

2,932

3,837

3,250 (1965)

Primary school enrollment (thousands)'

259 (1889)

638

Secondary school enrollment (thousands)' University enrollment (thousands)g

6

Daily newspaper° (circulation, thousands)

(1954)

Radios (thousands)'

4,750

5,575

TV (thousands))

1,200

6,500

Movie theaters (#)"

200

1,736

3,194 (1967)

1,407 (1985)

NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained. • % of total population voting in presidential elections. Kenneth Ruddle and Philip Gillette, eds., Latin American Political Statistics (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1972), p. 106; Burns, A History of Brazil, 3d ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 196; and Jose Alvaro Moises, "Elections, Political Parties, and Political Culture in Brazil: Changes and Continuities,"Journal of Latin American Studies 25 (October 1993): 6o6. b A. K. Ludwig, ed., Handbook of Historical Statistics (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1985), p. 132, and UNECLAC Statistical Yearbook 1994, table 40. • Schmitter, Interest Conflict, p. 23, and Diamond et al., Politics in Developing Countries, P. 143. d Burns, History of Brazil, p. 467, and Diamond et al., Politics in Developing Countries, p. 143. Havinghurst and Moreira, Society and Education, pp. 85, 187, 200. f UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1965, pp. 164, 192, 225. g UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1975, p. 142. ° UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1985, p. ' UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1995, pp. III-101, I11-177, 111-257. UNESCO Statistical Yearbook 1963, 197o. k Wilkie, Statistical Abstract, table 513.

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Table 4-3. Brazil: Extent of rationalization 185o 190o 1930 1950 1963 1970 1995 Political succession no yes no yes yes yes yes National myth in education N/A N/A some some some some some some yes no yes some no yes Religious institutions Civil religion some yes some some no no some some no some yes yes yes some Cultural uniformity Language yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no no some some no some yes Income distribution N/A no yes yes some some yes Workers' organizations yes yes yes yes yes Farmers' organizations yes yes N/A N/A N/A no no yes yes Payment of taxes N/A N/A yes yes yes yes yes Conscription N/A N/A N/A yes N/A N/A N/A Fighting wars no no some some some some some Administrative cohesion Foreign policy yes yes yes yes no yes yes Peaceful change yes yes some some no no yes yes yes some some no some some Legitimacy Total (%)

75

67

61

75

40

63

83

identity was a generalized resentment of the wealth and status of foreigners, including European Portuguese, and of the legal privileges given Britons. Insofar as any notions of a separate collective identity can be discovered among the leaders of the independence movement, they amount to a Whiggish liberalism among the radicals, nativists, and republicans. Loosely, they identified a future Brazil with the constitutional views of British Whigs and of Orleanist French liberals. The dominant LusoBrazilian faction and its successors, however, preferred a reformistsyncretist mixture, a strong monarchy and a strong state church along with guaranteed freedoms for notables and people of landed wealth. Neither view was strongly articulated or consistently defended in the politics of the empire. An analysis of Brazilian views and practices regarding the racially heterogeneous society further illustrates the lack of a clear national identity and purpose. White Brazilians, until the 192os, were able to entertain totally selfcontradictory racial views. Throughout the first century of independence the white elite held to the view that racial heterogeneity is a great evil, an enormous burden holding back the country's progress. Even liberals and abolitionists believed that once slavery was abolished, society owed the freed Africans nothing additional because the presumed Portuguese lack of racial prejudice (as contrasted with Anglo-Saxon practice) ought to make it possible for the newly freed to make their own way. The immedi170

Brazil ate appearance after abolition of an underemployed, illiterate, unskilled, and impoverished black underclass came as a great surprise to the white elite because its members also held to the belief that there were no intrinsic differences in intelligence, energy, and moral endowment among race s.5 Social Darwinist ideas arrived in Brazil toward the end of the nineteenth century. They led to the additional view that whites were preordained to prevail in the competitive evolutionary struggle among races. How was this circle of incompatible ideas about race to be squared in a setting in which whites were a minority? The formula chosen by Brazilian elites was "whitening": Brazil, in order to survive and prosper, must assimilate its blacks by gradually making them whiter. Intermarriage was to bring about a swelling of the ranks of mulattoes, considered a step toward a society growing white gradually and thus more "advanced" genetically as well as culturally. European immigration was to swell the ranks of whites. These principles were put into practice after 19oo in the form of an aggressive policy to encourage European immigration.6 Whitening was abandoned in the 1920S as a way of thinking about Brazilian national identity in favor of the idea of a multiethnic melting pot. This change came about after the discovery by novelists of the sertcio, the barely settled backlands, as the site of the true Brazil, the source of the national character to be created. The 192os also saw the publication of studies that attacked the idea of innate racial differences and the notion of competition among races. Concomitantly, a literature developed extolling the middle and working classes as the true representatives of Brazil, not the landowning elite. Other writers began to celebrate the caboclo, the Brazilian backwoods pioneer of mixed IndianEuropean origins, as the true Brazilian, while reviling blacks. A reformist-syncretist ideology was taking form in the 192os. As lower-class Afro-Brazilian culture was increasingly being taken seriously by anthropologists and novelists, the idea grew that Brazilian identity is the melted harmony of all the cultures present, including religions other than Catholicism and European strains other than Portuguese. This nascent 5 A study of racial stereotypes in Sao Paulo shows that between 1900 and 1930 most whites and many blacks held these beliefs: blacks properly do only menial work; the few blacks who do not are not considered "black." Blacks should not give orders to whites. Blacks should not be shown the kind of courtesies common among whites. See Florestan Fernandes, The Negro in Brazilian Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969). 6 Between independence and 1883, 427,000 Europeans immigrated, half of them Portuguese. Between 1884 and 1975 about 4.2 million more immigrated; most of them arrived between 1894 and 1933. About 40 percent were still Portuguese; apart from the many Japanese, the others came overwhelmingly from Europe. By 19oo serious efforts were made in secular public schools to inculcate a sentiment of Brazilianness by stressing that "one's country" refers to Brazil, not the country of origin. I71

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

national myth was to become official after 193o under the rule of Getalio Vargas.' Similarly, it was not until Vargas that Catholicism became the state religion in the full sense, despite the fact that by that time it had many competitors. The paradox is more apparent than real. The formal theology of the Catholic Church never had a following that went beyond the upper and upper-middle classes in urban centers. Settlers in the backlands practiced a folk Catholicism that venerated local saints and holy men but dispensed with priests and sacraments. Umbanda and Candomble were the religions of the poor in cities and on plantations. Under the empire the church was an appendage of the state, subsidized by it and owing its appointments to the emperor. It acquired no institutional autonomy. The First Republic separated the church from the state, eliminated subsidies, and removed religion from education. The church unsuccessfully sought reestablishment until 193o but failed to become an important actor in public life on its own. Even after Vargas once more made it the state church in the 193os, its status was never the major public issue it had been in many other countries. But Catholicism became an important source of ideas in shaping the Brazilian identity that became visible after the 192os because of its social teaching on interclass harmony and community. These ideas were to figure prominently in the Brazilian corporatism of the 19305. The foreign policy of the First Republic did become an early source of national identity. The Brazilian elite derived enormous pride from the work of its famous foreign minister in the first decade of the twentieth century, the Baron of Rio Branco. His skillful diplomacy resulted in vast accretions of territory as he negotiated the country's final land borders. He made Brazil visible by hosting international conferences. He sought the sponsorship of the United States by acting as a prominent leader in the nascent Panamerican movement then favored by Washington. He cast Brazil as the interpreter of North American ideas in South America, 7 Gilberto Freyre and Arthur Ramos were the most prominent exponents of the meltingpot view. By this time many recent European immigrants were sufficiently assimilated to assert themselves culturally and politically. Protestantism was spreading. So were Afro-Brazilian religions, notably Umbanda; as these demanded a literate following, the social mobilization of the lower classes fed religious pluralism and the sense of multiethnic melding. See Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz, "Identite nationale, religion, expressions culturelles," Social Science Information 25, no. 1 (March 1986): 206-28; Thomas E. Skidmore, "Racial Ideas and Social Policy in Brazil, 187o-194o," in Richard Graham, ed., The Idea of Race in Latin America (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 7-36. The image of typical Brazilians conveyed by this literature is as sensual, nonjudgmental, fun-loving, carefree, kind, and accommodating, as proven by the absence of racial prejudice and the ready acceptance of interracial sex, the source of Brazil's culture. Much of this survives today as an ingredient of what might become a national myth. See Thomas E. Skidmore, "Where was the Brazilian Malinche?" Yale Latin American Studies (1998): 45-56.

172

Brazil as a guide to modernity. Rio Branco, along with the famous international lawyer Ruy Barbosa and the pioneer in dirigible technology Santos Dumont, became a hero to the Brazilian elite, evidence of a high culture and of progressive achievement. Brazilian coffee planters, economists, and lawyers also invented a major institution during the First Republic: the idea of moderating fluctuations in world coffee prices by systematic policies of market management. Successive coffee "institutes," run first by the state of Sao Paulo and eventually by the federal government, learned how to manage and finance coffee stocks to prevent overproduction, policies that eventually led to international coffee agreements. Such accords became a familiar method of managing world commodity markets. By the beginning of this century distinct evidence of an attitude of superiority was appearing in Brazilian thought. There was widespread contempt for the confusion and instability in Hispanic Latin America, especially Argentina. As one author said: "The historic and political superiority of Brazil is manifest: united, colossal, irreducible. . . . It is destined to occupy in South America within a century the same preponderant place that the United States occupies in North America."8 Why, then, did the First Republic crash? Why did Type D nationbuilding eventually fail? Social mobilization did not really begin in Brazil until after 1900. Sustained modernization took off much later. The few mobilized people who considered themselves assimilated, who made Brazil independent, had no need of a national myth. Their way of rationalizing the country sufficed to hold it together as long as no major source of dissatisfaction appeared. And none did—until the 1920s. By then the pace of social mobilization had created an urban middle class, much of it made up of recent European immigrants, as well as a white rural proletariat, alongside the caboclos and blacks. The First Republic made no effort to incorporate these newcomers: it gave them no comprehensive myth, nor were they allowed political participation. The revolt that toppled the old elite was the result. It was to usher in a new start, following Type A, that combined institutional and ideational challenges to the old order. Brazilian populism was born, and with it the rulers' effort to create a state and a nation at the same time.

8 Quoted by E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3d ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 37. However, note that recruits in army units stationed in Rio during the 1920S had a very hazy notion of Brazilian nationalism. In one survey 42 percent "had no concept at all about Brazil as a nation" and 20 percent "couldn't mention any specific possibilities the country had to offer." Philippe Schmitter, Interest Conflict and Political Change in Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), pp. 56-57.

173

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS BUILDING THE NATION-STATE

(1930-1945)

Between 193o and 1945 Brazil's history was dominated by the charismatic dictator Getfilio Vargas, still today seen as Brazil's most revered national hero.9 The bloodless coup that installed him in power was supported by a heterogeneous collection of malcontents: urban groups in the major states opposed to the old oligarchies of fazendeiros, senior military personnel concerned about the possible breakdown of public order, junior military personnel eager to launch a technocratic modernizing regime, and upwardly mobile blacks fighting discrimination and wishing to imitate the success of recent European groups in achieving assimilation. Moreover, the smaller states supported Vargas to break the hegemony of sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. Until 1937 Vargas ruled more or less in conformity with a new democratic constitution of 1934, based on proportional representation, by playing off democratic, fascist, and Marxist parties against one another. He tired of the game in 1937 and created the protofascist Estado Novo with its enormous social reforms and the initiation of deliberate policies of fostering a national identity. By then 66 percent of the economically active population was still engaged in agriculture and only 9 percent in manufacturing; there was still only a handful of universities, with about ten thousand students, graduating mostly lawyers and medical personnel; transportation remained primitive; the manufacturing sector specialized in food processing; literacy hovered around 3o percent; and no more than twenty thousand attended secondary schools in a population of about thirty million. Efforts at nation-building had to start at a very low level of social mobilization. Still, building from the top down, Vargas by 1936 had introduced an array of modernizing innovations: the first ministries of labor, education, and public health; pension funds for the public sector; paid vacations for some workers; regulation of private schools; standardized administrative rules for municipalities and states; licensing of professions; subsidized housing loans; regulation of hours of work for all, with special rules regulating employment of minors and women; industrial disability insurance; maternity benefits; minimum wage regulation; civil service reform; regulation of immigration. Soon the state was to become the patron of urban labor and of industrialists. Vargas made little effort to extend the bureaucratic reach of the state to the countryside, where most 9 Vargas led with a mere 16 percent for "political leader most admired" and 33 percent for "best Brazilian president" in a 1989 IBOPE poll with an n of 2,75o. No other figure named came close to him. Bolivar Lamounier, ed., Ouvindo o Brasil: Uma analise da opinido palica brasileira hoje (Sao Paulo: Editora Sumare, 1992), p. 155.

174

Brazil

Brazilians still lived. His populism was based on the urban sector alone; he did not tackle land reform or the empowerment of the peasantry. Fearful of being defeated by the still-entrenched rural oligarchies, he preferred to work for the integration of the peasantry into the nation by encouraging the settlement of the west. Uncertain Integralism Meets Hesitant Syncretism Even though the Vargas regime never articulated a clear ideology of its own, it was preoccupied until 1937 with fighting integralist Brazilian nationalisms of the left and the right; Vargas embraced neither, but his populist authoritarianism successfully contained both. Quasi-integralist features included sporadic police repression and surveillance, state propaganda, the refusal after 1937 to hold free elections or permit the functioning of political parties, and the state-corporatist formula for running the economy. Yet the Estado Novo's rule also featured syncretist elements: recognition of the Catholic Church as the state church, a patronclient style of rulership, the attempt to create a Brazilian racial-national consciousness, and the refusal to countenance land reform. True integralism was represented by the Communist Party, led by Luis Carlos Prestes, and the temporarily significant Brazilian Integralist Action Party of Plinio Salgado. Both men had been Vargas's close associates. Both parties embraced educational and social reforms and enjoyed significant working- and middle-class support. But the Communists wanted to restrict private property whereas the Integralists wanted to protect it. Both parties asserted for the first time an economically based Brazilian nationalism in their attacks on foreign investors and world capitalism. It was the Integralists, however, who preached "family, country, god" as the core of a national solidarity anchored also in hierarchy and obedience. They aped European fascists in their mobilizational tactics but avoided their secular racism; the Integralists identified being Brazilian with Catholicism and multiethnicity. Vargas opportunistically drew on all these themes, emphasizing collective rather than individual rights and state-managed industrialization. Under his 1934 constitution, efforts to contain individualistic interest representation were unsuccessful because free labor unions managed to prosper despite attempts to subordinate them to state-sponsored unions. Hence the 1937 constitution introduced a more authoritarian form of corporatism designed to eliminate individualistic democracy and economic liberalism and to stress collective efforts to achieve what was considered the main job of the modern state, the perfection of the economy. '75

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

The Corporatist State and the Economy Sporadic revolts, unrest in the military, difficulties in collecting taxes, and an obstructive legislature made governance aimed at deliberate modernization difficult for Vargas during the first seven years of his rule. In 1936 state militias still accounted for 34 percent of the armed forces, and occasionally they confronted the federal army. With the help of an army-supported coup in 1937, Vargas overcame these centrifugal forces. He abolished the state militias. He burned the state flags in a public ceremony and placed some state governments in the hands of federal "intervenors." The new constitution, for the first time since 1889, gave the federal government primary jurisdiction over the negotiation of foreign loans, industrial development, education, the armed forces, and the civil service. Although the authoritarian new order eliminated many of the political perquisites of the coronets, it did nothing to undermine their economic hold over much of the rural population. Corporatism became the formula for catering to the urban sector while controlling it. It took the place of the First Republic's repression of labor and ignoring of the urban middle class. It was to substitute commitment to the collectivity for the selfishness of liberalism. Corporatism was to be the institution expressing the interests of the collectivity, because "our historical evolution has not yet given us structure, organization, and a collective consciousness," said Francisco Jose de Oliveira Vianna.1° As in European fascism, Brazilian corporatism sought to contain class struggle by creating quasi-compulsory sindicatos for workers, merchants, industrial entrepreneurs, and members of the free professions. Supposedly dedicated to realizing the general will, representatives of the sindicatos were to advise the bureaucracy on economic and social legislation. They were also to serve their members by performing such social services as were assigned to them by the state and to distribute social, educational, and health benefits. As a result of corporatism, the Brazilian federal bureaucracy honed its manipulative skills and co-opted the successive leaders of labor and business. Corporatism made the state into the benevolent patron of a docile working class, and the bureaucracy the mentor of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie eager to cooperate in practicing import-substituting industrialization (ISI). Vargas, by giving privileged political access to the military, the church, and the industrialists, was able to dispense with single-party rule. 10 As quoted by Kenneth P. Erickson, The Brazilian Corporative State and Working-Class Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 16. Oliveira Vianna was one of the antidemocratic theorists advising Vargas. Another, Francisco Campos, advocated the creation of a new political system, better able than liberalism to cater to the needs of the working class while avoiding class conflict.

176

Brazil

Brazil's agricultural exports were hard hit by the global depression of the 193os. This dependence on agriculture was one reason for attempting ISI. Because the sindicatos effectively organized and controlled the voluntary organizations that were forming in society, the state managed to harness business and labor to the process of modernization and, eventually, to rationalization. The role played by pluralism in the modernization and rationalization of Britain and the United States was assumed by the corporatism of the Estado Novo. One of the reasons for the failure of the Second Republic was the inability of the government to continue the manipulation of social forces by means of corporatism; class conflict, instead of having been transcended, reasserted itself with a vengeance by 196o. The commitment to industrialization, once Brazilians realized that agricultural exports could never be expected again to yield a rising and reliable national income, did not bring with it an equal commitment to systematic planning. Vargas lacked any understanding of countercyclical fiscal and monetary policy. In fact, the state did not even acquire the sole power to control the currency until 1923, when the Bank of Brazil was established. This, however, did not prevent the development of a distinct feeling of national need and national purpose with respect to economic development. It took the form of pride in the discovery of oil reserves and the construction of a major steel works. It also made state-sponsored migration into the unexploited western interior of the country a source of national pride. Five-year development plans were drawn up after 1939 by a new bureaucratic entity supposedly devoted to principles of scientific management, but they were nothing but wish lists for capital investment. No serious effort to implement them was made. Administrative cohesion did not improve greatly. Consumer goods production grew anyway because Brazil was cut off from its normal sources of imports during World War II. The state assumed certain new economic roles to aid in that process. It created parastatals to mine and market iron ore, manufacture steel, produce caustic soda, and assemble airplane engines (an endeavor that eventually developed into the nucleus of the automobile industry). State financing of private industry was also launched. Fashioning a Nation: Culture, Religion, Education, Race The Estado Novo deplored the weakness of Brazilian nationalism and set out to create a sense of national identity. Reform of the educational system was a major weapon in this campaign. Nine new universities were created; enrollment of students in them increased from six thousand in 193o to more than fifty thousand by 195o. Literacy jumped from 25 177

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

percent to 43 percent during the same period, and primary school enrollment tripled. The Estado Novo stressed public rather than private schools, which the middle and upper classes preferred to use and continued to favor until much later. Many private schools still used languages other than Portuguese, a practice banned after 1937 when Portuguese was made the sole legal language of instruction and the teaching profession was reserved to persons born in Brazil. Schools, for the first time after a hundred and fifteen years of independence, were to become agents for instilling patriotism, a sense of civic duty and of Brazilian history, though few in fact did so. The Estado Novo's failure to use the school system effectively for nation-building became the permanent fate of Brazil's educational policies. The goals of education have been consensual ever since the 193os: creation of professional skills needed for industrial development and mass basic education, including the eradication of illiteracy. They have never been fully achieved because there has always been serious contention over the means for attaining these ends. Argument continues over whether public (free) or private (high-tuition) institutions are most appropriate. Since 1960 attendance in private primary and secondary schools has declined, but private universities attract more students than state institutions. Populists stress public schools; the middle and upper classes prefer private ones. Equally divisive, argument continues over whether the federal or local governments should have primary responsibility. Successive literacy campaigns were often no more than populist grandstanding with few lasting results, though illiteracy has dramatically declined for other reasons. Primary education has vastly expanded, but not in the parts of the country most in need. Standards in secondary and university education fell sharply as access became more of an entitlement. No standardization of the curriculum occurred. No single version of the civic religion ever found permanent expression in the school system. Vargas explicitly singled out the beliefs and symbols of the Catholic Church as the authentic institutional expression of Brazilian culture despite his energetic espousal of secular modernization. The state encouraged and subsidized the creation of what was to become the canonical Brazilian aesthetic in music, dance, and literature, explicitly drawing on non-European sources in the exploitation of native folklore. The Estado Novo self-consciously sought to create a civil religion that blended Catholic and secular European themes with Indian and Afro-Brazilian practices. It used as its core the common belief that Brazil is a harmonious multiethnic society, free of bias and discrimination, equally hospitable to all races, despite massive evidence to the contrary. 178

Brazil

In reality, a self-contradictory ideological discourse on race and racial purity continued despite the mushy integralist nationalism of these years. Officially, the state adopted the melting-pot ideology developed earlier by Gilberto Freyre and others, which identified the genius of the Brazilian people with the prevailing mixture of races and cultures.n Nevertheless, the belief in whitening continued to compete with the ideal of multiethnic blending. Fear of cultural degradation due to the presence of nonEuropean groups was widely expressed. As honored an educational reformer as Fernando de Azevedo wrote in 1940: If we admit that blacks and Indians are continuing to disappear, and that immigration, especially that of a Mediterranean origin, is not at a standstill, the white man will not only have in Brazil his major field of life and culture in the tropics, but be able to take from old Europe—citadel of the white race— before it passes to other hands, the torch of western civilization to which the Brazilians will give a new and intense light—that of the atmosphere of their own civilization.12 The preference for whites and for whitening was expressed in the Estado Novo's immigration policy. Worried that American blacks and more Asians would seek to settle in Brazil, the government instructed consulates not to accept visa applications from these groups. The immigration code included in the 1937 constitution provided for rigid annual immigration quotas heavily favoring Portugal, Italy, and Spain but also permitting the influx of appreciable numbers of Germans. These rules have never been changed. Unlike Argentina, which flirted with the Axis powers, Vargas kept his distance from the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy, even though he identified multiethnic Brazil with the claim to be the leader of white civilization in South America. When the United States entered the war, Brazil made bases available to Washington, closed down German business enterprises, declared war on Germany, and sent a division to fight in Italy as part of the U.S. 5th Army. In exchange for military help, Vargas de11 Karl Loewenstein, in Brazil under Vargas (New York: Macmillan, 1942), p. 127, noted that the Brazilian elite is too cynical and sophisticated to subscribe easily to any ideology, including a consistently racist one. Nor could a nationalism built on corporatism find general acceptance because of a lingering attachment to liberalism on the part of many upper- and middle-class Brazilians. The first stirrings of a black power movement in Brazil came from the Frente Negra Brasileira, founded in the 192os. It was made up of successful blacks eager to combat discrimination, but it was linked to a desire for complete assimilation as well as the faith in racial equality and respect for multiethnicity, which contradict assimilation. 12 These words were used in his A cultura brasileira (1943), then accepted as a standard interpretation of Brazilian civilization. The quotation and commentary appear in Skidmore, "Racial Ideas," p. 22.

179

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

manded and received American financial support for his industrialization schemes. The ties forged by the officers of the expeditionary corps with their American colleagues were to bear important political fruit after the suicide of Gallia() Vargas in 1954. How Much Rationalization, How Much Learning? By 1943 Vargas gave hints that Brazil might be mature enough to put authoritarian rule behind it and restore some form of democracy. Yet when respected Brazilian intellectuals demanded free elections, he began to tamper with the electoral machinery, apparently to ensure his reelection in a tutelary role. Previously, he had moved toward the left and created, from the top, two political parties, the leftist Brazilian Labor Party (PTB)—his own chosen vehicle—and the more conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD). A third major party, the National Democratic Union (UDN), was reborn as the home of civil libertarians and of advocates of a private capitalist economy; its members had been Vargas's cowed opposition." They made clear their preference for a military coup to get rid of Vargas. At that point, in 1945, the army forced him to resign in favor of a somewhat more democratic regime, the Second Republic. Vargas ran successfully as a pro-labor populist in the elections of 1950 and ruled until 1954 as the democratically chosen president. The rate of social mobilization had picked up enormously after 193o (see table 4-2). Brazil sported a rationalization score of 56 percent by then (see table 4-3), an enormous improvement over 193o, especially considering the cascading rate of modernization and social mobilization. We know that the institutional changes introduced by authoritarian rule succeeded in creating a true Brazilian state. In what ways did the Estado Novo also contribute to the sense of nationhood? Economic development, administrative reform, and educational innovation all made it possible for the newly mobilized middle class to be readily assimilated into the governing elite. The newly mobilized workers, however, were "assimilated" only in the sense of being given material rewards and institutions of mere symbolic significance, the labor sindicatos. The leaders of the Estado Novo learned how to mobilize and contain the working class as a potential challenge to their hegemony. They accomplished this feat, in part, by creating and diffusing symbols of national identity. Vargas decreed that two-thirds of all workers in all 13 See Scott Mainwaring, "Brazil: Weak Parties, Feckless Democracy," in Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully, eds., Building Democratic Institutions (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 354-98. During the Second Republic these three parties dominated political life. However, there were also seven smaller leftist and Christian-Democratic parties, and five smaller conservative ones in addition to the UDN.

18o

Brazil plants must be Brazilian-born. He forbade the affiliation of his controlled labor confederations with the international socialist and communist labor confederations. Even though the pursuit of industrialization proceeded in the absence of serious analysis and planning, by muddling through, Brazil's economic leaders derived some self-confidence from their successful management of coffee surpluses. The consolidation of a more rationalized Brazil owes more to ad hoc adaptation quite consistent with the practice of jeito, "getting along with others," which many Brazilians consider a marker of national identity. Neither learning nor much adherence to dogma was in evidence. Vargas, as we saw, lacked strong ideological commitments and shunted articulate ideologists aside. He excelled in administrative skills, but his vision for a future Brazil was limited to industrialization-as-progress, to a measure of national autonomy vis-a-vis the global economic system. All other values and institutions were mere instruments in that quest. This limitation did not impair his enduring status in Brazilian nationalism as the father of economic developmentalism, a value, then as later, more important to Brazilians than liberalism. He was able to supervise innovations without being an innovator. His return to democracy was driven by the fear that he could not survive as an authoritarian ruler after the victory over the Axis, not by a learned preference for liberal nationalism over Brazil's confused blend of integralist and reformist- syncretist ideas. Nor, it must be stressed, did that blend lead to a fervently nationalistic populace. If Brazil had a national myth, it remained as bland as its rationalization remained precarious. SOCIAL MOBILIZATION DEFEATS WEAK INSTITUTIONS

(1945-1964)

The Second Republic Derationalized Brazil The gaps in the country's rationalization became evident as soon as the Allied victory was seen as challenging the weak integralism of the Estado Novo. That victory also discredited fascism in the eyes of the military. During the subsequent two decades the capable state that had been created after 193o delivered a great deal of industrial and social modernity to its citizens. Yet the society it served grew more fractious, unhappy, and unequal as it underwent accelerated social mobilization. The Estado Novo had created strong administrative institutions, but its goals had not included the fashioning of fora for the practice of participatory decision making. The Second Republic excelled at intensified economic "developmentalism" that gave doctrinal coherence to the less systematic economic policies of the Estado Novo. It even initiated an assertive nationalism in 18 I

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

the field of foreign policy. But it did little to institutionalize representative institutions. Nor did the Second Republic fashion a crisp sense of national identity. The resulting delegitimation of democracy was consummated by the military coup of 1964 and the reemergence of a more focused integralist-nationalist ideology. Before this denouement the presidency of General Gaspar Dutra (1946-50) marked an interlude in Brazil's increasingly aggressive industrial developmentalism punctuated by free enterprise, much resented by the corporatist economic bodies. Getulio Vargas in 1951 resumed the energetic pursuit of state-guided ISI. His elected successors, Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-61), janio Quadros (1961), and Joao Goulart (196164), continued the same policies. The revolt against the Republic was sparked by President Goulart's effort to insert himself into the army's chain of command. It was led by a coalition of officers and civilian technocrats trained by the Higher War College (ESG) and soon joined by the organizations of industrialists and other urban middle-class groups as well as by the rural oligarchs. The coup, in short, enjoyed widespread support from people opposed to the increasing militancy of labor and its impatience with state corporatist ways. It was as legitimate as the Republic had become illegitimate. Social mobilization outran the learning and the adaptive capabilities of the polity. By 1960 the state budget accounted for 29 percent of GDP, agricultural labor accounted for only 53 percent of the economically active population (down from 6o percent in 1950), membership in the social security system increased sharply, and as table 4-1 shows, all the other indicators of industrialization were significantly higher than in 1950. Literacy had reached 53 percent and the urban population 5o percent of Brazil's 71 million people. School enrollments more than doubled over the 1950 figures. Yet the distribution of incomes had hardly changed, and the rationalization score in 1963 had plummeted to 37 percent (from 56 percent in 1950). The corporatist straitjacket was less and less successful in holding labor in check; the early 196os were punctuated by local and general strikes. Modernization and social mobilization seemed to have outrun institutional adaptation. Yet anthropologists noted that despite urbanization the family remained the focus of Brazilian life. Kinship ties were still central in shaping official and commercial relations.14 14 See Charles Wagley, "Regionalism and Cultural Unity in Brazil," Social Forces 26, no. 4 (May 1948): 457-64. Peter Evans reports that the Brazilian state remained a huge "job machine" for many technically unqualified people. The expansion of the bureaucracy was accompanied by clientilistic personnel practices based on personal or familial access to patrons. Each incoming president is able to appoint between 15,000 and ioo,000 new officials.

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Brazil The role of the state continued to grow under the Second Republic. Vargas, after 195o, had begun serious development planning by creating the National Development Bank, the state oil monopoly (Petrobras), and the national plan for coal production and utilization. Kubitschek followed with his plan of "targets" for the major specific industrial and agricultural sectors thought to be "growth points" for the entire economy. This led to the creation of a large number of parastatal organizations and mixed stateprivate firms and a central planning machinery. A national planning commission was set up in 1961, and a three-year development plan for the entire economy took over in 1963. It went beyond the "targets for growth points" idea for the first time by linking economic growth to institutional change, public health, and systematic resource surveys. The building of a brand-new capital in the interior—Brasilia—was Kubitschek's way of creating both a new national symbol and a public works project of unprecedented scope. National pride was evidently spurred by the speedy conclusion of the Brasilia project in 196o. Brazilian commentators agree that the three political parties remained marginal to governance because each lacked a clear class base. The PTB and PSD supported ISI eagerly, as did the syndicate of industrialists. But agricultural interests opposed it because they put their faith in increased state subsidies for coffee and sugar growers. The church, radical and conservative factions alike, competed with the Communist Party and with Francisco Juliao's Peasant Leagues in organizing agricultural laborers and small farmers. In order to head off the Marxist thrust into rural areas, the conservative church leadership convinced President Goulart to extend the corporatist labor law to the rural sector. This was done, but the resulting peak syndicate, CONTAG, soon fell under the control of Communists and radical Catholics anyway. Some industrial labor syndicates remained the fief of leader-patrons who learned to manipulate the labor court and social security systems to satisfy some of the demands of their clients, without challenging the sway of the bureaucracy or articulating any vision of Brazilian proletarian nationalism. But the advance of industrialism, linked to the government's efforts to contain wages, caused many syndicates to escape the corporatist structure as they came under the leadership of the Communist Party. Repression was prominently deployed to curb rural protests and attempts to seize land. Ideologies of Developmentalist Nationalism: A Civil Religion? Dutra and the UDN represented a laissez-faire approach to the creation of wealth that saw nothing wrong with Brazil's remaining an exporter of primary commodities; they abjured a vision of an energetic, industrial, self-sufficient, and culturally integrated Brazil. They lost out 183

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to two nationalistic-developmentalist views, which might be labeled "cosmopolitan" as opposed to "xenophobic" developmentalism.15 Cosmopolitans and xenophobes agreed that Brazil required a systematic ISI policy guided by the state, pursued more energetically and consistently than had been done under the Estado Novo. Moreover, both saw their task as completing the nation-building enterprise begun by Vargas, though they thought of this task primarily in terms of economic development free of international constraints. But they disagreed on appropriate means as well as entertained different notions of the basic reasons for ISI. The Vargas and Kubitschek administrations waffled between the two approaches, but President Goulart followed the xenophobic line more consistently. Cosmopolitans, many informed by Keynesian thinking as well as by the antidependency doctrine learned in courses taught by CEPAL, thought it both possible and desirable that Brazil find a niche in the global economy that would enhance its position as an exporter of manufactured goods, not merely of primary commodities. They did not oppose capitalism on principle, in its domestic or international manifestations, but they did oppose capitalism free to act without state supervision. If foreign investors were willing to subject themselves to state direction, they were welcome to contribute to national development. Cosmopolitans were willing to deal with the World Bank and the IMF. Though they belonged to the dependentista school of nationalist development specialists, their way of overcoming dependency was a moderate one. They worried about inflation and other macroeconomic challenges to development while stressing capital creation over consumption and redistribution. The xenophobes were radical opponents of Brazil's dependency. Many derived their ideas from Marxism. They wanted Brazil to secede from the "imperialist" global capitalist system, to achieve industrial nationstatehood on its own or in close collaboration with other "exploited" countries. They were quite indifferent to inflation because of their commitment to heavy state investment outlays and to cost-of-living subsidies 15 There is continuing disagreement as to when ISI became the reigning economic doctrine in Brazil. The Estado Novo's policies were consistent with the doctrine (and I label them thus) but antedated its formal articulation in the early 195os by a group of economists led by Raul Prebisch, head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL), which became the main agency that advocated ISI and trained tecnicos in Latin America in its practice. Prior to CEPAL's impact on Brazilian officials, other policies consistent with ISI developmentalism were worked out and practiced by the Vargas regime as a result of contact with U.S. economic advisers and with Brazilian economic radicals of integralist inspiration. CEPAL's "official" ISI developmentalism became Brazilian policy under the Kubitschek administration. See Kathryn Sikkink, Ideas and Institutions (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), chap. 4. Famous "cosmopolitan" officials included Roberto Campos, Mario Simonsen, and Lucas Lopes. The "xenophobes" were mostly intellectuals, members of economic institutes, and students. Their main home was the Instituto Superior de Estudios Brasileiros (ISEB). Prominent writers in the tradition included Celso Furtado (who also held important bureaucratic positions) and Helio Jaguaribe.

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to workers. Nor did they care about good relations with international financial institutions. They preferred a domestic political strategy of alliance with the "national bourgeoisie" to outright revolutionary activity, and they showed more concern for helping the peasantry than did the cosmopolitans. The Catholic Church underwent a resurgence that made it a major force in social reform. Church-state relations after 193o made the Catholic hierarchy an instrument of the state: Vargas, in exchange for making the church the official articulator of Brazilian morals, also converted it into a major advocate of the Estado Novo. The hierarchy, as a result, continued its habitual role of defending the social and economic order. Even though under the Second Republic the organic link between church and state was broken, the state still subsidized the church by paying the salaries and other expenses of priests and nuns working in Catholic schools, hospitals, and orphanages.16 By 1952 this situation was challenged fundamentally. Under the leadership of the newly created Brazilian Bishops' Conference and its founder, Dom Helder Camara, a vibrant minority of native-born bishops and priests identified with the impoverished Northeast succeeded in turning some of the Catholic Church fora into active promoters of egalitarian social change. The reformers considered poverty and lack of political empowerment unjust conditions inviting a successful Marxist challenge. Hence, in order to envisage the eventual victory of Christian doctrine over materialism as the foundation of society, the church—the radicals said—had to goad the state into making meaningful, fundamental social and economic reforms and to participate actively in this process. Justice was to be promoted by church-managed or supported organizations: Catholic Action, the Movement for Basic Education, and Catholic rural unions as well as many new pastoral programs. The church reformers also claimed credit for influencing the state to launch major structural reform programs. The church's demands for justice were expressed as claims for attaining equality for all, a sense of entitlement that is part of citizenship. Put differently, the resurgent church became the author of an ideology that sought to define an antimaterialist participatory Brazilian national identity that would ultimately contribute to the creation of a general sense of citizenship consistent with liberal nationalism. 16 The secular role of the church was particularly pronounced in the area of education. In the early 196os one-quarter of all university students were enrolled in the twelve Catholic universities (out of a total of thirty-seven such institutions); one-quarter of all secondary schools were Catholic, and 42 percent of primary schools were run by the church. It also managed 944 hospitals and took care of 856,000 patients, while staffing 2,300 social service agencies. See Thomas Bruneau, The Political Transformation of the Brazilian Catholic Church (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 249. I rely heavily on Bruneau's account.

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The Armed Forces and Developmentalism If anyone had a well-articulated nationalist ideology, it was the Brazilian officer corps. Though increasingly professionalized, the military caste claimed a distinct political role, to act as "the moderating force" among politicians perceived as not always serving Brazil's national interest. The officer corps asserted the right to intervene in politics to correct perceived mistakes committed by civilians, to reassert the true national interest. That, however, did not mean that the military was ideologically and programmatically unified; on the contrary, the military and civilian political elites interpenetrated easily: generals often ran as presidential candidates, officers aligned themselves with political parties, the parties sought to cultivate the officer corps. The entire political spectrum, from communism to fascism, was represented in the ranks of the officer corps. The "Atlanticist" (or "Sorbonne") faction that overthrew the Republic in 1964 had to stage a massive purge of the military before it could consolidate its rule. The main factions competed actively; Brazilians measured their relative strength by observing the victors of elections in the Military Club. Irrespective of faction, all officers were developmentalists who wanted to increase Brazil's industrial prowess, and most considered Marxism a serious threat to Brazilian security. The Sorbonne faction was aligned with the UDN and favored free enterprise even though it also sympathized with the cosmopolitan developmentalists. Democracy, as long as it did not threaten "security," was acceptable. The faction was preoccupied with international communism and therefore closely identified with U.S. and NATO policies. A "nationalist" group sought an autonomous antidependency developmental policy for Brazil and favored the CEPAL position on economic issues, while wishing to extirpate communism in Brazil. Its nationalism tended more toward integralist dogma, though its economic ideas were those of the xenophobe developmentalists. Multinational firms and American foreign policy were particular targets of opprobrium. Officers of this persuasion, after 1964, were known as adherents of the linha dura, as opposed to the less authoritarian followers of the Higher War College (ESG). The intellectual center of the military's nationalism was the ESG, in which a national security doctrine was developed that adopted many of the arguments of the cosmopolitan developmentalists. It combined belief in industrial strength with unrelenting opposition to Marxist ideas and the power of labor unions.17 That doctrine was taught not only to the offi17 ESG developed this definition of national power: "National power is the integrated expression of all the means at the disposal of the nation in a given period for the promotion and maintenance of the state, both internally and in the international domain, of the

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Brazil cers who studied at ESG but also to large numbers of civilian technocrats who also attended. Together they constituted a nationalistic epistemic community because both were employed in considerable numbers as administrators by President Kubitschek, even though some of the military despised him (and President Goulart) for being tolerant of the Marxist left. All the factions eventually agreed on overthrowing a civilian regime perceived as destroying Brazil as a nation. As one of their leaders put it, An inflationary and pharaonic development [the construction of Brasilia] . . . was aggravated by the demagogic doctrines of Communism and both of them produced a disastrous wage policy in which the labor unions were manipulated by leaders who were known Communists and wage claims were transformed into demands placed on the government.18 But no ideology sufficed to yield a civil religion that could also shape a national identity. The voice of the resurgent reformist Catholic Church did not overcome that of the Marxist secular developmentalists. The two vied for defining a national identity in an ongoing discourse that led to no consensus about Brazil's destiny. The ideology of a multiethnic Brazil aroused no great interest under the Second Republic. European immigrants were readily assimilated into a Brazilian culture that lacked concern about qualities that might make it unique or especially desirable. Relations among diverse cultures were not part of the developmentalist dialogue of these decades. Afro-Brazilians remained overwhelmingly unmobilized. The few who acquired education and awareness of the modern world were readily assimilated into the urban professional classes and hence deprived of an incentive to mobilize other blacks. The lack of racial conflict made it unnecessary to fashion a civil religion that showed concern about interethnic relations. The only evidence of a markedly nationalist ideology that claimed more than a commitment to industrialization was expressed in foreign objectives of the nation in spite of all existing opposition." The policy of national security comprises "all the measures, plans, and norms that are directed at removing, reducing, neutralizing, or eliminating the present obstacles to the realization or maintenance of the objectives of the nation." Some officers saw those objectives as "the progressive augmentation of the powers of the state ... to regulate all collective life." All quotations come from Rouquie, Military and the State, p. 286. The ESG conception sounds very similar to the programmatic pronouncements of Italian fascism. 18 Ibid., p. 282. Even though conscription exists in Brazil, exemptions allow the upper and middle class to escape service, whereas the bulk of potential rural recruits (who badly wish to serve because they see the army as a way to rise in the world) cannot pass the physical examination. Conscription policy represents another missed opportunity for inculcating a sense of Brazilian identity. Enlisted personnel are drawn mostly from the working class and lack a sentiment of political relevance. Officers are increasingly drawn from military families of lower-middle-class origins. 187

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policy positions urged by the Marxoid-xenophobic faction of developmentalists. When President Kubitschek refused to heed advice from the World Bank and the IMF about controlling inflation—and was punished by a denial of loans—he was hailed as a defender of the nation's honor. His successors identified with Cuba, declared themselves to be nonaligned in the cold war, sought close relations with newly independent African states, blamed the United States for Brazil's lack of industry, and asserted Brazil's right to lead the Western Hemisphere. Since the incipient national myth stressed industrialization over everything else, it is not surprising that the development theme would be expressed strongly in Brazil's foreign policy. ISEB-affiliated nationalists blamed local private capital for Brazil's backwardness but singled out foreign investors and United Nations financial institutions for special criticism.19 The whole country was delighted with the nationalization of the foreign-owned oil industry in the early 195os. Despite the huge expansion of the state's scope, administrative cohesion did not improve a great deal. The social security system was slow and unreliable in paying benefits because both the government and employers evaded their obligations to contribute. When reformers sought to improve administration, they created new agencies without abolishing the ones that were seen as ineffective. For many decades after I goo, successive governments sought to allay periodic droughts in the Northeast by building dams and reservoirs, without attempting systematically to link them to irrigation canals or to improve agricultural practices and credit, hydroelectric power, or measures of public health. Under Vargas a development bank for the Northeast was set up and agricultural services improved, and efforts were made to increase the supply of electric power. However, abolishing or reorganizing the earlier administrative structure or coordinating these services would have challenged the local landowners, who preferred the absence of a planned infrastructure for helping drought victims. No coordination was attempted until President Kubitschek created an agency for the Northeast (SUDENE) that integrated drought relief into rural reform and development. It is unclear 9 Helio Jaguaribe foresaw a Brazil equipped with nuclear weapons and long-range missiles and thus able to live up to its socialist national destiny. Even a cosmopolitan former minister of finance claimed in 1961 that "we are already too big and too powerful to feel shy about contending with other nations." Frank Bonilla, "A National Ideology for Development: Brazil," in K. H. Silvert, ed., Expectant Peoples (New York: Random House, 1963), p. 253. Bonilla believed that the leadership focused on foreign targets in the hope of creating a sense of national identity and purpose which they felt to be absent. Victor Wallis argues that the independent foreign policy was merely a ploy to placate the xenophobes while the government sought to adopt policies restraining inflation. See his chapter, "Brazil's Experiment with an Independent Foreign Policy," in Yale Ferguson, ed., Contemporary Interamerican Relations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), pp. 42-46.

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whether SUDENE ever achieved many of its objectives.20 Even though the state made a serious commitment toward the redistribution of wealth to the poor urban strata, it is uncertain whether worker living standards improved much. No Democratic Institutionalization, Little Learning Democratic methods of peaceful change were poorly institutionalized. Politicians shunned party discipline and even close affiliation with the parties to which, in principle, they belonged. Quadros and Goulart, as presidential candidates, crossed party lines and even posed as antiparty and antiparliamentary populists. As long as Vargas dominated politics, there continued to be confusion between attachment to parliamentary government as opposed to personalistic caesarism. The institutions of legislative oversight were not developed. The fact that the military continued to act as a veto group over all civilian governments did little to institutionalize peaceful presidential succession. Military displeasure with Vargas's populism was one reason for that president's suicide. In 1955 the military had to stage an autogolpe to enable the Kubitschek-Goulart team to assume the office to which it had been honestly elected. In 196o the constitutional succession of Joao Goulart to the presidency required military assent. The pro-ISI coalition fell apart in 1963, as Goulart, in a marked turn to the left, tolerated the attempted unionization of enlisted military personnel and urged land reform. Incipient pluralism challenged faltering corporatism. To the army leaders it looked as if class struggle was about to erupt, and they responded by toppling Goulart in 1964. If one measure of progress, under liberal institutional procedures, is the victory of meritocracy over patron-client relations, Brazil did not make the mark. One aspect of learning consists in changing recruitment policies so as to minimize premodern practices. Brazil's elites had not learned this lesson. Nor did they learn to get rid of redundant administrative agencies. Developmentalism was most successful in sectors in which new state agencies achieved autonomy from the premodern forces in their environment, notably in instances in which close inter-elite networks with a progressive private sector were created: in automobile, petrochemical, and computer production. Little systematic learning occurred in the Second Republic. To be sure, the creation of SUDENE was an effort to learn from the decades of failed previous policies in the rural Northeast. The developmentalist theories 20 The story is told by Albert 0. Hirschman, Journeys toward Progress (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1963), chap. 1. Hirschman considers the creation of SUDENE, but not its performance, an instance of policy learning.

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of epistemic communities associated with ISEB and CEPAL, and the economic nationalism that came with them, contained elements of responses learned from the analysis of past economic growth experiences considered failures by developmentalists. Yet the implementation of these policies contained much unselfconscious adaptation and a good deal of plain ideological drive. Commentators favoring ISI think of these policies as true learning; neoliberals disagree. Most observers felt that the dramatic shift toward statist policies followed by President Goulart—linked to inflation and the distancing of the private sector from industrialization—were the result of ideological commitment, not of learning. Albert Hirschman, in a brilliantly prescient discussion of progress and collective learning, showed that "reform-mongering" can be learned and that it consists in part of the ability to present apparently antagonistic political relationships as being nonantagonistic, or in the ability to convert antagonistic into nonantagonistic links by means of shrewd institutional-administrative choices. Some developmentalist experiences of the Kubitschek administration illustrate this possibility.2' Quadros and Goulart, however, did not heed them. They were unwilling or unable to cope with what was increasingly seen by the military, the technocrats, and the industrial middle class as an antagonistic set of policies that challenged the opposition's stake in systematic industrialization: leading the Third World, flirting with Cuba, antagonizing the United States, encouraging inflation, fanning labor unrest. Still, several highly articulated nationalist ideologies emerged, much more elaborate and commanding a larger body of supporters than ever before. Left-wing developmentalism, designed to shake off the bonds of dependency on the capitalist world, was one. It considered itself the sole authentic expression of the nation because it thought of itself as "populist": deriving from a mass base of dissatisfied people and determined to fight the "oligarchy" of coffee and sugar barons, aristocrats, and the bloated but parasitic state bureaucracy of lazy professionals, lackeys of capitalist America.22 Another, victorious after 1964, was the national security doctrine of the military and its civilian allies. Both nationalist ideologies rejected any lingering 21 Hirschman, Journeys toward Progress, chaps. 4 and 5. 22 Antidependency nationalism never developed any thoughts about Brazilian uniqueness or institutional or cultural life. It was preoccupied with bringing about an economic and social revolution. See Celso Furtado, "Political Obstacles to the Economic Development of Brazil," and Helio Jaguaribe, "Dynamics of Brazilian Nationalism," in Claudio Veliz, ed., Obstacles to Change in Latin America (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 145-61, 162-87. The authors in this collection would deny the honorific label "nationalist" to the victors of the 1964 coup. In the Brazilian literature of the 195os, 196os, and I97os "nationalist" meant the Marxist-xenophobic ideology. For evidence of the biased nature of this view, see Arthur P. Whitaker and David C. Jordan, eds., Nationalism in Latin America (New York: Free Press, 1966), pp. 89—go.

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Brazil notions of syncretism. Though quite different, both were hybrid and weak versions of integral nationalism, one proto-Marxist and the other protofascist. Neither became a successful national myth, though until 1985 the national security doctrine officially carried the day. THE MILITARY DEVELOPMENTALIST STATE RERATIONALIZES (1964-1984)

Three of Brazil's five military presidents—Umberto Castello Branco, Ernesto Geisel, and Joao Batista Figueiredo—were members of the ESG group. They thought of the military dictatorship as a temporary measure to "cleanse Brazil of subversives," after which democracy was to be restored. Two others—Arturo Costa e Silva and Emilio Medici—held to the linha dura; they favored retention of repression and wanted to make authoritarian institutions and values permanent. Moreover, many of the lower-ranked officers who administered numerous government and parastatal operations followed the linha dura. Thus, the ideological and programmatic points that had earlier divided the military continued to divide it between 1964 and 1985. On the whole, however, the freer rein given to private business, the gradual reintroduction of democratic procedures, conservative macroeconomic measures, and the embrace of the United States in foreign policy (except for the neutralist stance of Ernesto Geisel) signaled the hegemony of the ESG ideology. Throughout this period the regime's nationalism avoided the sharply edged autonomist views of the xenophobes. Institutions of Rationalization Used by the Military The military's Brazil was not a simple dictatorship headed by a personalistic leader, a traditional caudillo. The coalition of forces that made or supported the 1964 coup was too heterogeneous. In addition to the various military factions, it included the UDN, elements of the PSD, and many industrialists and members of the professions, as well as numerous technocratic civil servants trained during the previous decade, particularly economists. The values that inspired the members of the coalition were by no means identical. But they all agreed on these: the massive state-led developmental thrust was to be intensified, left-wing forces advocating social change ahead of industrialization were to be eliminated, and the state had to be rationalized. Only one wing of the military and some of the technocrats utterly disdained democracy; they abhorred "politics" and wanted to banish it in favor of "administration"; most others held more '9'

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nuanced opinions.23 As a result of these disagreements the ESG-affiliated presidents insisted on the preservation of a veneer of legalism; most acts of authoritarian control and repression were first justified by amendments to the constitution or other legal maneuvers. All military presidents rejected the role of the caudillo as inappropriate for modern Brazil. All refused to abolish Congress, eliminate elections, and banish political parties by resorting to rigorous state corporatism anchored in a single party, such as in the authoritarian Mexican model. Instead, they banned the old political parties but created two new ones. Their "official" party, ARENA, was joined by almost all UDN members of Congress and about half the membership of the PSD. The "opposition" MDB was made up of the other half of the PSD and the PTB, as well as of minor parties. Elections—suitably rigged to ensure the victory of ARENA—were held to choose federal and state legislatures, but the federal Congress retained few legislative powers because, when blocked, the presidents ruled by decree. Presidents were "elected" by Congress, after "nomination" by ARENA, though these acts merely ratified the real choice, always made as a result of intraservice intriguing among the military factions. State governors were chosen according to similar processes in each state. The hallmark of tolerance for lingering democratic practices was the willingness of some presidents to honor the results of elections that produced MDB winners or majorities. The core of the authoritarian regime was the mechanism of repression. Presidents had the power to remove as a "danger to national security" any elected or appointed official; that power was used sporadically. They also exiled opponents, censored the media, and removed intellectual opponents from positions of influence, as in universities. But the systematic practice of torture of suspected opponents, and eventually their "disappearance" at the hands of death squads, constituted the core of the terror practiced against the left. This was true especially during the terms of Presidents Costa e Silva and Medici; it began to slacken off after 1974. After 1968 there was an active antiregime guerrilla movement, animated by both Marxists and Catholics, 28 Peter McDonough, Power and Ideology in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), examines Brazilian ideologies in the late 1 97os, demonstrating the precariousness of liberal values. Among the social reformers, McDonough found "radical humanists" who considered politics and economic development mere instruments for the enhancement of social welfare; others thought democratic governance should be considered only after economic development had succeeded in enhancing social welfare. Few democratic politicians put faith in liberal institutions ahead of the need to develop economically or the need to distribute economic gains equitably. Almost no economists professed any belief in liberal values and institutions. Nor did commitment to liberal values predominate in the opposition. Most of its members, Marxists, Catholics, and liberals, put social welfare and equity ahead of democracy. Civil rights were seen merely as an instrument to restrain repression. 192

Brazil which was effectively eliminated by 1975 by the use of terror and violence. Terror was the domain of the military intelligence services, staffed by hard-line junior officers. Efforts to mitigate it, made by superior officers of more moderate views, generally failed. Not even the president, though always a four-star general, was able to discipline all his subordinates. Partial Economic Success and Partial Learning The Brazilian economy achieved phenomenal growth rates during the 197os, though punctuated by repeated bouts of high inflation and marked by balance-of-payment and budget deficits. These were successfully managed by the economic technocrats, led by Roberto Campos, Delfim Netto, and Mario Henrique Simonsen until 1979, the onset of the global depression and Third World debt crisis. Throughout, the generals adhered to a moderate type of ISI that retained the leading role of the state but sought to rely more on free markets and insertion into the global economy than did the earlier ISI policies. Capitalism was to be modernized, exposed to the forces of competition, and forced to innovate, and capitalists were to be weaned away from their preference for family-owned firms. Some central planning was attempted in the form of production and investment targets, though it was not systematically executed. The technocrats' ISI relied on the domestic production of durable consumer goods. In addition to developing a domestic market, they successfully pushed exports of manufactured goods. Foreign investment capital was welcomed, even direct investment by foreign multinationals. Everything might have gone well if it had not been for two policies that worked against wholly successful economic rerationalization. In seeking to tame inflation, by avoiding budget deficits and not printing money, the technocrats increasingly relied on foreign loans for monetary stabilization, until recession and the fears of the lenders stopped the inflow of money— and ended the boom. Moreover, the economic miracle had been accomplished on the back of labor: real wages, though indexed, declined; poverty increased, and after 1979 dissident unions grew up and strikes became common once more as the government eased repression. In the 197os 5o percent of government expenditures went for various kinds of social security and subsidies to consumers; between 198o and 1985 the amount shrank to 23.5 percent. The regime seems, inadvertently, to have fanned class conflict instead of banishing it. The generals, however, were concerned about poverty. They favored some redistribution of wealth if it did not compete with the goal of break193

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neck industrial growth. One set of measures to accomplish redistribution focused on the regional development of the Northeast and Legal Amazonia. The military at first sought to strengthen SUDENE. Persistent failure of the agency and of the Sao Francisco River Commission to achieve their objectives, however, persuaded Brasilia to alter course as droughts continued to ravage the Northeast and as discontent among the landless small farmers and squatters grew in proportion. A new comprehensive approach to massive regional development found expression in the Amazonia project, as symbolic of the military's will to develop the country as the Brasilia project had been for Kubitschek. Serious efforts had been made since 1942 to foster mining, farming, ranching, and rubber production and to promote migration into the area from the drought-prone Northeast. President Medici, appalled by the effects of the drought, sought to systematize relief by linking migration of victims to Amazonia to the massive development of highways, tax relief, and subsidies for migrants, along with the creation of model villages and model farms in the lands being opened for settlement. Not only did the farming schemes fail, because of poor prior research into soil conditions, but the in-migration led to serious land disputes among migrants and between them and ranchers, as well as with the indigenous population. Moreover, regional development efforts launched elsewhere on Brazil's western and northern frontiers have encountered serious environmental and human rights challenges. What superficially looked like true policy learning on the part of the military regime and the technocrats turns out to be nothing more than sloppy efforts at adaptation. Measure for relief was piled upon measure without adequate advance research and analysis, without taking into account the lessons of the failures of predecessor agencies, without willingness to consider systematically the trade-off between social equity and economic growth. Transformation of Corporatism The military government retained the essence of the state-corporatist system of syndicates for organizing and controlling industrial workers. The changes they introduced were designed to purge left-wing leaders, prevent strikes by using the labor courts to settle disputes, and legitimate the suppression of wage increases as labor's contribution to nationbuilding. In 197o the labor courts resolved 430,000 disputes; the corresponding number in 195o had been 66,000. Though repressed and not truly represented by the co-opted leaders of the syndicates, by the mid-197os a new set of labor leaders managed to find new ways of fighting the employers and the state which sidestepped the official labor code, such as slow-downs and sit-down strikes. Some 194

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collective bargaining occurred even though the corporatist structure was designed to prevent it. By the end of the seventies the new labor leaders—of whom Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula) was the most prominent—were heading unions that attempted to free themselves from the old syndicates. Moreover, the state learned to tolerate the unions and to deal with their leaders. The unions, conversely, learned to stress issues relevant to labor's welfare. Being democratic socialists, the new union leaders were determined to transform Brazilian society by peaceful, but militant, political action. Their rise to political respectability is symbolized by Lula's almost-successful run for the presidency in 1989 and his role in forming the new Workers' Party (PT), which at first was hard to distinguish from the anti-corporatist trade union federation (CUT). Similar events occurred in the countryside. The hard line military was determined to extend the policy of national modernization into rural Brazil, to break the hold of what it considered semifeudal economic and social conditions. At first, fearing a reenactment of the Cuban model, the military regime was preoccupied with destroying the left-wing peasants' organizations that had grown up after 196o and eliminating their leaders. That task accomplished, they turned to the systematic modernization of agricultural production in the hope of creating a progressive agribusiness capitalism capable of exporting products other than sugar and coffee. That, they reasoned, called for an equally progressive and patriotic peasantry, not an illiterate and socially unmobilized herd of rural clients. As the minister of labor observed in 1973: The rural worker was society's stepson, abandoned and forgotten. The enemies of the nation, sectarians of spurious doctrines, thought to find in the countryside the cultural stew for their subversive designs. However . . . the Revolution has already erected the highest barrier against this criminal effort, . . . integrating the Brazilian of the countryside into the national community, and forever granting him the "status" to which he has right [sic] .24 The military, in short, set out to mobilize the peasantry under the auspices of the state. It did so by extending the system of state corporatism further into the countryside. Using CONTAG, it unionized smallholders, squatters, and the landless. The official unions were used to provide social security benefits, health services, legal advice, and extension services under the auspices of a massive rural welfare program called PRORURAL. The Bank of Brazil conducted a large-scale rural credit program. Union membership 24 As quoted by Peter Houtzager, "State and Unions in the Transformation of the Brazilian Countryside, 1964-1979," Latin American Research Review 33, no. 2 (1998): 117-18. My discussion derives entirely from this study. 195

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reached six million by 1979 in 2,275 rural unions and twenty-one statelevel federations. As in the case of industrial unions, control over this machinery eventually escaped the state. Some unions slipped into the hands of left-wing leaders, both Marxist and Catholic, who affiliated with CUT. Others remained in the more moderate hands of CONTAG, which rejected trade union pluralism. But both advocated land reform and began to act as the representatives of self-organized interests. In addition, the free union of rubber tappers and the Movement of the Landless entered the fray. The military, by now committed to redemocratization, accommodated itself to this wholly unintended and unanticipated outcome of their efforts to modernize the countryside by tolerating the evolution of true socioeconomic pluralism. Ideological-Institutional Innovation The military, for reasons of its own that had little to do with fomenting liberal democracy, gave a distinct stimulus to the formation of a Brazilian national culture. Apparently concerned about the labile character of Brazilians' national consciousness, the military sought to inculcate a mass sense of patriotism in the schools it was creating. The development of education became a major objective: an industrial-modern Brazil was thought to require literate and publicly aware people as well as technically qualified officials and researchers. The federal ministry of education and culture stepped up assistance to state and local educational authorities, as well as expanding the scope of federal universities. Special efforts were made to complete the education of dropouts. The period of entitlements to free and compulsory education was increased; compulsory vocational training was added in middle schools, work-oriented requirements in senior high schools. In 1969 the teaching of patriotism was made compulsory in public as well as in the numerous and important private schools. Teachers and curricula relating to patriotism required government approval; the curricular material was prepared by the ESG. Special efforts were made to enhance the national capacity to conduct independent scientific and engineering work, inspired by the desire to reduce dependency on the North. The government asserted a need for a national capacity to innovate that sought to use and adapt foreign designs, rather than seek full technological autonomy. But Brazil's technology planners stressed the capacity to think autonomously about the future: [Brazil] rejects the definition of development which points only to the developed countries as the target to reach.. . . [Brazil] proposes a definition 196

Brazil which states that development implies a high capacity of knowing, perceiving, and understanding in order to interpret the realities of the country, in order to maximize the achievement of the nation's objectives through the human and physical resources available.... The cognitive capability will be equivalent to a concept of science and technology for development.25

This doctrine was a direct outgrowth of the earlier teachings of ISEB and ESG. The graduates of these institutions became the epistemic community of experts who went on to shape the government's science/ technology policy, moderately successful in the field of informatics and a resounding failure when it came to nuclear energy.26 Successful or not, the institutional innovation associated with technical education and scientific research contributed to the further development of civil society once the military relaxed its grip. The beneficiaries of the education had subsequently established social networks among themselves that were able to contribute to the growing pluralism inadvertently nourished by the state. The resurgent Catholic Church also fed the pluralist stream. The radicals, in urban and in rural areas, invented a new institution, the Christian Base Communities, of which there were forty thousand by 1974. Ranging in size from a dozen to a hundred people, they began as meetings to study the Scriptures but developed into organizations for empowering the poor to take a hand in their own improvement. In the church circles committed to an active social reform agenda there had grown up an ideological movement known as liberation theology. Personified in Brazil by Friar Leonardo Boff—later silenced by Pope John Paul II—its adherents believed that the Catholic faith is above all political, committed to justice in this world. Using standard Marxist 25 As quoted in Emanuel Adler, The Power of Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 167. 26 My account relies on the work of Adler, Power of Ideology, and of Peter Evans, Claudio R. Frischtak, and Paulo Basos Tigre, eds., High Technology and Third World Industrialization (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International and Area Studies, 1992). The implantation of a national computer industry was motivated by military and cultural reasons more than economic ones. National power and greatness were thought to demand independence from the major multinational corporations (MNCs) that were competing for domination of the growing Brazilian market; cultural-nationalist arguments pushed in the same direction. But arguments for efficiency suggested the opposite. Brazil's epistemic community for science and technology sacrificed market considerations for national autonomy and forced the MNCs to leave the development and production of mini- and microcomputers to national firms selected by the state, subsequently protected by the normal ISI policies. The same motives failed to give Brazil an autonomous nuclear capacity. Instead of relying on the creation of institutions for "learning by doing," as in the computer case, the government opted to purchase complete equipment for the entire fuel cycle from Germany at an enormous cost. The onset of the depression and the debt crisis forced Brazil to cancel the contract. Nuclear policy throughout had been characterized by interagency squabbles and administrative chaos. It had gone forward without the participation of Brazilian scientists.

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concepts for the analysis and critique of capitalism, liberation theology commits the Catholic community to revolutionary action to overcome injustice. Liberation theology enthusiasts differed from Marxists only in rejecting the familiar materialist ontology and epistemology. Until rejected and stigmatized after 198o by the Catholic Church hierarchy in Rome and the moderate wing of the Brazilian clergy, its followers collaborated with Marxist guerrillas and effectively formed the urban and rural poor into organizations that, after the demise of the military tyranny, became one nucleus of democratic forces. Improving Administrative Cohesion The Brazilian bureaucracy under military rule improved in the industrial and the agricultural sectors. The preference for administration over politics, for rule by experts over interest representation and horsetrading among interest groups, also implied increasing impatience with the old bureaucratic politics of patronage, access, and family influence. "Rationality" in administration became a virtue. Being a "technocrat" was to earn high praise. Parastatals attempted to remain aloof from interest politics. But in issue areas in which the military had no great interest or fixed plans, the old politics of incoherent administration continued. Nor were the technocrats given their head when there was disagreement among the military leaders about a course of action. The drift toward class-conscious industrial unions implied a decline in the politics of patronage practiced by the labor bureaucracy. In the agricultural sector the military created many new agencies that replaced older ones found to be ineffective. In general, plans for the countryside combined ever more sectors into comprehensive packages as bureaucrats came to appreciate the causal links among such elements as poverty, illiteracy, political dependence, poor health, and inadequate diets. The commitment to a modern agribusiness model, however, kept planners from tackling the issue of land reform. Moreover, interest politics was by no means totally banned, as witnessed by the long jockeying over whether land colonization in Amazonia was to favor smallholders or agribusiness, thus interfering with the straightforward implementation of plans.27 If symbols of growing administrative and policy cohesion were needed, it would be the creation in 1964 of the first true Brazilian central bank and the improvement of the tax system. Although the old Bank of Brazil had carried out some central banking functions, it remained in essence the largest commercial bank, with the state owning the majority of 27 For details, see Stephen G. Bunker, "Policy Implementation in an Authoritarian State," Latin American Research Review 18, no. 1 (1983): 33-58.

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Brazil the shares. The state increasingly used it to subsidize investment in the sectors singled out by the planning agencies. The new central bank was created over the strong objection of the private banking sector, but it did not acquire the power to control interest rates until 1987. The military, for the first time in Brazilian history, perfected the collection of the federal income tax so that by 1969 more than four million people paid, as compared with 470,000 in 1967. In 1949 taxes amounted to only 14.9 percent of GDP, but that number rose to 27 percent by 1973. A Moderately Self-Assertive Foreign Policy Reversing the flirtation with the Third World launched by President Goulart and supported eagerly even later by the technocrats in the Foreign Ministry, the military during the 196os was quiescent in its relations with other countries. It generally identified with and followed the lead of the United States, as in the 1965 occupation of the Dominican Republic mandated by the Organization of American States in a muchdisputed decision. The military supported, without great enthusiasm or energy, measures aimed at the economic integration of Latin America. Beginning with President Medici, however, things started to change. Brazil sought and received respect as the most industrialized country of Latin America. It sought cooperation with its neighbors and conciliated past rivals, chiefly Argentina but also Venezuela and Peru. It avoided any taint of seeking hegemony and diversified its economic relations by reducing its bilateral ties with the United States. At the same time, Brazil achieved prominence in multilateral organizations, where it continued to lead the Third World bloc and cultivate special ties with Africa, while also seeking to avoid antagonizing the West. The military, without identifying overly with other Latin military regimes, sought to safeguard the borders from "leftist contamination." It stopped the long rivalry with Argentina by concluding a number of technical cooperation agreements. Brazil sought closer ties with other Amazonian states by signing an umbrella agreement for the collaborative exploitation of the Amazon region. When the United States exerted pressure on Brasilia over the issues of human rights violations and nuclear proliferation, the military ignored it and ended a military aid agreement. Moreover, when the IMF and the Paris Club of creditor states wanted Brazil to honor principle and interest obligations on its debt, Brazil found ways to force a debt rescheduling without giving in to the pressure. By 1979 developing countries accounted for almost 3o percent of Brazil's exports, which included durable consumer goods as well as conventional armaments, and 44 percent of Brazil's imports came from the developing 199

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world. At the same time, North American and European shares of Brazil's foreign trade declined steeply. American direct foreign investments, by 1978, had declined to 28.4 percent of total foreign investment, from 37.7 percent in 1971, while Europe's share remained about the same as before and Japan's doubled. Neighbors to the south took up a rapidly increasing share of Brazil's foreign trade.28 In short, the military succeeded in turning Brazil from a camp follower of the United States into an autonomous and respected international actor. Yet it did not give Brazil anything like a clear international mission or a unique identity. Since Brazilian public opinion is not very interested in foreign affairs and evinces no fear of foreign powers, there was little occasion for doing so. Instead, the military's propaganda focused on Brazil's prowess in soccer and used Pele's stardom to advertise national racial democracy. The Victory of Inadvertent Learning Our discussion of Brazil's relatively successful rerationalization under military rule may create the impression that the armed forces governed on the basis of analysis, causal reasoning, and the dominance of experts; in short, that learning prevailed. Such a finding would also suggest that learning and a mild form of integral nationalism are quite compatible. This an interpretation is only partly correct. There is no doubt that there were important elements of causal reasoning in the minds of some officers and many expert-bureaucrats (tecnicos). These were expressed in macroeconomic, industrial, agricultural, and educational policies much more consistently than in prior governments. However, the element of ideology was equally pronounced as a definer of policies, especially among the military personnel. So were adaptive responses. There was a great deal of backing and filling, of shuffling of personnel, of administrative reorganization. Most of this came from disappointment with earlier policies. But it is incorrect to argue that military rule relied on a previously learned understanding of "late ISI" and its associated problematique, leading to the policies described in the theory of bureaucratic-authoritarianism. It is simplistic, though not totally wrong, to argue that the military learned to open Brazil to democracy after 1975 because it understood its own limitations as an effective ruler.29 28 All statistics taken from Wayne A. Selcher, "Brazil in the World," in Elizabeth G. Ferris and Jennie K. Lincoln, eds., Latin American Foreign Policies (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981), PP. 87-9o. 29 In support of the argument that there is a poor fit between the theory of bureaucratic-authoritarianism and the events of the 196os and 197os, see the chapters by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jose Serra, Albert 0. Hirschman, and Robert R. Kaufman in David Collier, ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). Current students of Latin America feature an argument about "new social

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Brazil The military at no time acted as a cohesive and homogeneous force. It was always riven by ideologically informed factions that managed to postpone the democratization Geisel had wanted to introduce. Nevertheless, the military drew the inference that the coalition of forces that had constituted its basis for legitimacy was rapidly disintegrating by 198o because of the government's inability to master the economic crisis. It bears stressing that the disintegration occurred after middle- and upper-class groups that had been supporters of the regime had already reaped the benefits of earlier successful policies. In short, the beneficiaries of the regime now turned into the core of the opposition, joining the students and workers, who had been alienated much of the time. Put differently, the military's earlier successes triggered its eventual loss of legitimacy. It is no small tribute to the adaptive abilities of the ESG wing that it saw the handwriting on the wall and responded by facilitating the peaceful advent to power of the emergent democratic opposition. Thus, the military initiated the gradual reduction of its own role and power and the reintroduction of democracy by stages. President Geisel began the process, but it was only his successor, President Figueiredo, who, by 198o, encouraged the reemergence of political parties not controlled by the military, relaxed censorship, allowed the return of exiled politicians, and curbed the torture of suspected dissidents. The presidential elections of 1984 resulted in the victory of Tancredo Neves, an opposition politician the military had hoped to defeat but at the end accepted. Why? Members of the Sorbonne faction believed, in essence, that their job had been completed because they had succeeded in spurring Brazil's industrial growth and in eliminating the left. By 198o, however, Brazil's economic miracle was in danger of being swamped by the country's debt crisis and the global recession. Negative growth, renewed labor militancy, and the apparent inability of the economic technocracy to cope threatened the legitimacy of military rule. In addition, the military leadership was seriously worried about the lack of discipline in the armed forces and about their increasing temptation to corruption by virtue of being engaged in running civilian enterprises. It was time to return to the (pretended) professionalism of the barracks, especially since the elections held after 1974 displayed strong popular dissatisfaction with military rule.

movements" as the main challengers of authoritarian rulers, and hence as explanations of change. Such movements, because they challenge nondemocratic traditional parties and corporatist institutions, are thought to favor the kind of civil society a successful liberaldemocratic polity requires. The case ignores the role of the military in arranging for its own demise as the ruling elite, though it correctly stresses the importance of the new movements. 201

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Pro-cilcool: Marriage of Science and Development Nationalism The military's enthusiasm for science and technology as triggers of autonomous economic development suggests a trial marriage of nationalism with learning. Industrial strength, the ESG taught, must be based on a domestic capacity to innovate technologically, which in turn calls for a domestic scientific capability if dependence on foreign-trained scientists and engineers is to be shunned. National security, thus, demanded technological autonomy. To make the point, the government presented its scheme for substituting alcohol for gasoline as the nation's response to the challenge to prohibitively high oil prices exacted by OPEC after 1978.3° The program for using alcohol instead of gasoline for automobile fuel originated as a means of subsidizing the sugar industry and as yet another stimulus for the depressed Northeast. For years, there was infighting between advocates of state-dominated industrialization (mostly Petrobras) and spokesmen for private capital, rivalries among the government agencies involved, the automobile firms (all local subsidiaries of multinational firms), and indigenous capitalists. Nevertheless, a coherent program was launched by the state by 198o, administrative incoherence was corrected, rival coalitions were disarmed, and Brazil was on the way to being the first country to sell large numbers of cars fueled by alcoholburning engines designed by Brazilian engineers. It was changing oil market conditions and Brazil's financial woes that caused the program to peter out, not a failure of planning. Inadvertent Learning to Rationalize My picture represents a mixture of ideological, adaptive, and learning forces as the explanation of very important changes. As such it supports the idea that learning may well result from an incremental addition of separate instances of adaptation. A series of small quantitative changes in elite perception may still add up to the qualitative change I call collective learning, though "inadvertent" in this case.31 3° The Pro-alcool story is told by Michael Barzalay, The Politicized Market Economy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). " Marxists and Catholic liberationists learned their own lessons. They realized that their original ideologies did not work in Brazil because there was an inadequate mass base for a proletarian revolutionary movement. Hence they came to favor liberal democracy as a more reliable way to achieve the dramatic social and economic changes they seek. This, however, would not have happened if radical Catholics had not survived the years of repression and if their Base Communities had not prospered under military rule, something that might not have occurred if the archbishop of Sao Paulo, Cardinal Paulo Arns, had not protected them by means of his public exposure of the system of torture. In any event, the democratization of radical Catholics owes something to the victory of moderate leadership in the church, the failure of communism (and of Cuba), and the hostility of the pope to liberation theology.

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The regime adopted a number of policies after 1975 which produced consequences unintended by most officials but which added up to the complex of political cognitions and forces that resulted in the advent of the New Republic, a complex accepted by the rulers and later represented as having been their intention all along. The toleration of oppositionist mass demonstrations, of strikes and increasingly strident criticism, and of adverse election results stand out as examples. More important, the acceptance of anti-regime rural associations, of a socialist workers' party, and of new movements and associations of citizens generally is something triggered but not really planned by the moderate wing of the military. Undogmatic integralism, despite torture and repression, not only brought material progress but also seemed to make possible a liberal future.

THE UNFINISHED CONSOLIDATION OF THE LIBERAL STATE (SINCE 1985) Regress or Progress? That liberal future is slow in coming. The statistics of tables 4-1 and 4-2 suggest that Brazil, in 199o, was close to being a modern state and society despite the "lost decade" of economic development. Of Brazil's 147 million people, 23 percent each are employed in manufacturing and agriculture, and the percentage in the tertiary sector is now much larger. All the indicators of industrialization are rising. Almost half the total population votes in presidential elections, literacy has reached 79 percent, and the urban population accounts for 75 percent of the total. School enrollments have skyrocketed; almost all in the lowest age groups now attend elementary school. But membership in the social security system has declined overall, though it has grown in rural areas, and government expenditure was still a whopping 39.5 percent of GDP despite a commitment to cut back. Yet an editorial in Veja, the largest news weekly, could lament in 1993 that the country had no currency because of raging inflation, the economy was passing through its worst crisis in history, crime had reached unprecedented levels because of the corruption of the police, there had been no effective executive power for ten years, and the legislature enjoyed no respect.32 We might add that it was also difficult to discern a 32 The analysis was made by a widely respected journalist, Elio Gaspari. See Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 178.

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sense of national identity, discover a national myth, or mark a sense of national direction or purpose. Tancredo Neves, the first civilian president, died before he could be sworn in; his vice president, Jose Sarney, assumed office without the respect of the citizenry because he had been a supporter of the military regime. He presided over a continuing economic disaster. A new constitution was crafted during his tenure; it contained provisions guaranteed to prevent the emergence of a stable party system or an effective administration. It included real obstacles to the consolidation of democratic norms and habits. The election of 1989 polarized the country because it pitted a resurgent socialist left led by Lula against a television personality committed to shrinking the state and introducing market incentives to cure Brazil's economic ills, Fernando Collor de Mello.33 The new president, Collor, lacked a legislative majority and proved unable to stem the economic decline. In 1992 he was impeached on grounds of corruption and resigned. His vice president, Itamar Franco, on assuming office repudiated Collor and returned to the policies associated with the xenophobe developmentalists before 1964. Then a miracle occurred because two widely predicted events failed to take place, thus confounding Veja's prognosis: there was no coup to return Brazil to authoritarian rule, and there was no descent into the inferno of class war. The election of 1994 pitted two social democrats against each other; Lula challenged the universally respected scholar and finance minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso and lost. President Cardoso then undertook to improve the economy by favoring free markets and the private sector, shrinking the state, and providing for a more egalitarian distribution of the national product. A new social contract that included labor and the middle class seemed to be taking shape. It avoided the populism of the xenophobes arid the inegalitarian national security—determined toleration of capitalism featured by the military. 33 Lula's candidacy was unprecedented not only because he received 47 percent of the vote in the runoff election but because he proved acceptable to that many Brazilians despite the fact that he lacks a formal education, is "swarthy," belongs to the working class, and was born in the rural Northeast. The election of 1989 was unprecedented in another sense because it was the first free and honest election ever in which most of the population participated. Television played an important role in it; 22 percent of supporters of both candidates reported relying on it for electoral information, as opposed to much higher percentages relying on friends and family, colleagues, and political advertising. Interestingly, very few reported relying on the Catholic Church (4 percent of Collor and 6 percent of Lula voters) or on neighborhood associations (7 percent for Collor and 8 percent for Lula voters). Evidently, kinship ties and television are still more potent sources of political influence than the postauthoritarian social movements. Data based on an IBOPE poll of October 1989, with a sample of 2,68o persons.

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Brazil Accelerating Social Mobilization, Growing Pluralism Brazil is becoming ever more diverse in religious terms. Yet this state of affairs is hardly controversial. Pentecostal Protestantism is spreading rapidly among the poor strata of the population despite all efforts of the Catholic Church to contain it. Catholicism continues to be divided between moderates and radical social reformers, and the state maintains its distance from both. At the same time, rural folk continue to practice their local forms of saint worship, though the pace of urbanization is likely to make this form of Catholicism less popular. No form of Christianity is having a major or unique impact on public life. If major religions are becoming less relevant to a sense of nationhood, the growing Afro-Brazilian cults were never even linked to it. They remain local or personal therapy-like efforts lacking public moral content. The presence of a very large block of nonwhites seems to create few problems for Brazilians; they have managed to avoid the kind of ethnic challenge to national unity that has plagued the United States, India, Russia, and some European countries. Nor has the large influx of European and Japanese immigrants posed such a challenge. Why not? White and Japanese immigrants are readily absorbed into the culture within two generations. They are totally accepted as equals and tend to prosper. Their children are visible in the highest echelons of the state and of business. Although blacks who rise in the professions are treated more or less as equals—which leads Brazilians to insist that they are free of racial prejudice and of discrimination—the huge majority of blacks is not upwardly socially mobile. The lighter the color, the greater the chance of rising socially. Whitening is no longer official policy, but the reality of that consciousness remains. One explanation of the absence of a massive movement for racial equality is the fact that peasants' and workers' organizations, having a disproportionately black membership, act automatically as defenders of causes important to blacks though not perceived as uniquely linked to race. Corporatist unions earlier must have satisfied some of the material demands. The powerful presence of African art, music, taste, and religion in Brazilian culture must also help preempt dissatisfaction that might otherwise develop into an Afro-Brazilian separatist movement. As if such an outcome was expected, there sprung up in the 199os white movements for secession in the southern states heavily populated by European immigrants.34 Black organizations advocating more public recognition of black 34 In an IBOPE poll of 1993 it was reported that 67 percent opposed secession by dissatisfied states but that in the three southern states 41 percent favored it. When asked directly whether they favored the creation of a separate country to be called Republica do Pampa, only 58 percent of the national sample said no. Seventy percent professed themselves

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culture are proliferating, especially in Bahia. But they are denounced as divisive and un-Brazilian by whites and sometimes persecuted by the police. Nor have they assumed the form of a politically conscious civil rights movement.35 The New Republic is committed to more than the restoration of democracy. Haltingly under its first three presidents, more consistently under Cardoso, the democratic government committed itself to creating free markets and lifting the heavy hand of state regulation from the economy. Moreover, it watered down ISI in favor of a strategy of growththrough-exports that relies on the private sector. Most parastatals are being sold to private owners. 6 And, unlike all predecessor governments, the Cardoso administration successfully tackled inflation in such a manner as to suggest that important monetarist economic lessons have been learned. The government faithfully implemented IMF directives to cut the budget, reduce social benefits, and lower tariffs. These measures aroused a great deal of opposition from the left, which characterizes "neoliberalism" as an affront to Brazilian nationalism.37 Many industrialists accustomed to state protection and to the coziness of corporatist ties also oppose the policy. The parastatals actually sold fetched low prices and brought the state no profit. Land reform was on the agenda of the Castello Branco administration and resurfaced periodically under his successors. It called for the taxation or exinterested in environmental questions in 1992, but only 57 percent put nature above its appropriation by man. Respondents in polls on race relations uniformly deny any bias against blacks "if they act like whites." Anthony W. Marx, Making Race and Nation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 250-63, reports that Afro-Brazilians accept the ruling myth of racial equality and that state propaganda continues to foster it. 35 Organization of American States, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Brazil (Washington, D.C.: OAS, 1997), pp. 3-4, 145. See p. 143 for statistics on black inequality. The OAS report congratulates Brazil on its enormous progress with respect to the observance of civil and political rights since 1985 and especially since 1994, while urging intensified efforts to improve economic, social, and cultural rights, especially with respect to women and children. 36 As of mid-1998 many public utilities, telecommunications, some railways, and the largest mining conglomerate had been privatized by means of public auctions of shares. President Cardoso also reduced social security entitlement for one million retired civil servants, a pampered group no previous chief executive dared to antagonize. He also opened the economy to foreign competition, including some industries considered by the armed forces essential for national security. Cardoso was reelected to a second term despite the resentment caused by these steps. " In the early 199os 63 percent of Brazilians thought the failure to reduce poverty would be a likely cause of chronic social convulsion; one-third thought it might lead to extremist movements reaching power. See Lamounier, Ouvindo o Brasil. Most Brazilians evidently still support the "developmentalist state" in preference to a liberal one. In 1993, 43 percent of a national sample of 5,35o thought the government should run the entire economy and only 14 percent favored private enterprise instead; 24 percent opted for partial government ownership. "Encarte de dados de opinido publica," Opiniao Pdblica 1, no. 2 (December 1993): 1-41 -

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Brazil propriation of unused land and its distribution to landless peasants. Loopholes and strong local opposition kept the program from being implemented consistently. The constituent assembly that crafted the constitution of 1988 all but eliminated land reform from an earlier draft. Neoliberalism as a means for the redistribution of wealth is high on the agenda of the Cardoso administration. But so is a willingness to cushion the poor from the worst immediate consequences of economic liberalization. Rural Brazil is no longer the site of traditional patron-client relations in which landowners rule the roost. But the success of the Catholic Church and the unions in empowering the rural poor and landless failed to result in thorough land redistribution, abandonment of neoliberalism by the government, or permanent organizational power. Some peasants have joined the CUT trade union federation and vote for the PT in protesting government policy and the constitution of 1988. Landless peasants dissatisfied with the pace of land reform join the rural protest movement that engages in violent land seizures, a trend the Cardoso administration has fought with force. It is unclear whether the increasingly militant peasantry is willing to grant legitimacy to the New Republic. Labor is clearly improving its position in state and society. The Figueiredo and Sarney governments made serious, though not always successful, efforts to increase labor's share of the national product. Both winked at labor's growing sidestepping of the official corporatist union structure. The new constitution greatly increases labor's rights by guaranteeing a long list of economic and social entitlements, the unrestricted right to strike, the forty-four—hour week, and mandated increases in funds for education, along with new civil and political rights from which social movements associated with labor are to benefit. The retention of the corporatist framework is a major nonliberal holdover, though the autonomy of unions to finance themselves is larger than before. Though the old syndicates and federations remain, they now have to compete with "free" unions. There is growing evidence that unions behave neither as passive instruments of the state nor as an automatic socialist opposition. During the 199os there were several instances of labor-initiated tripartite negotiations designed to moderate the neoliberal enthusiasm of the executive by retaining some import tariffs and other means of sheltering some domestic industries. The unions no longer denounce all foreign investments, all multinational firms. After initially opposing Brazil's joining the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUL), the unions now wish to use the regional organization to upgrade regional labor standards. Most industrial associations decried inflation and budget deficits and wanted to get rid of government regulations they perceived as hamstring207

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ing their particular business needs. They called for "liberalization" to achieve these reforms, while opposing the wholesale opening up of the economy that President Collor wanted. The liberalism of most industrial associations was purely instrumental; there was no principled attachment to the neoliberal program. Hence, though businesses favored the removal of restrictions and regulations they perceived as harming them, they nevertheless killed off the Collor program of true liberalization. Most syndicates continue to clamor for state subsidies and protection and to cultivate their institutionalized ties with the bureaucracy, which is facilitated by the fact that their corporatist status under the 1988 constitution is the same as before.38 However, the confirmation of that status did not prevent independent splinter associations from arising to challenge the status quo program of the official syndicates. About 3o percent of all firms are at least partly owned by foreign capital. One tenet of business corporatism was to prevent this share from expanding and to keep it out of certain sectors. The 1988 constitution all but prohibits foreign investment in mining, aerospace, and telecommunications enterprises. Though some firms (and their syndicates) railed against these restrictions as hampering business, most insisted on their retention. They did so by urging an "industrial policy" for Brazil to regulate the pace of the opening and to spell out the sectors to be reserved for Brazilian firms. Nevertheless, Brazil has moved toward easing the access of foreign investors to industrial property, including in industries that earlier benefited from the exclusionary policy. Most business firms support Brazil's membership in the MERCOSUL and, unlike labor, accept as unavoidable the conditions on loan repayment imposed by the IMF. Spotty Rationalization, Contradictory Civil Religion There are certain incongruities in Brazilian political life which, at least, beg the question of the solidity of a national identity. Brazilians take pride in the size of their country, in its differences from Hispanic Latin America, its multiculturalism, its economic progress and promise. They show increasing respect for human rights in wishing to hold the military responsible for its killings, in expressing outrage at widespread malnutrition; some, like President Cardoso, even admit pervasive discrimination against blacks and have begun to fight it with human rights commissions. 38 I use the term "corporatism" in the value-neutral sense customary among American political scientists. See Philippe C. Schmitter, "The Tortugalization' of Brazil?" in Alfred Stepan, ed., Authoritarian Brazil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 206. Brazilians, however, use the term "corporativismo" to give a pejorative meaning to the notion of interest groups and their influence on government.

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Brazil Nevertheless, urban crime is omnipresent and uncontrolled, police regularly kill homeless youths, the continued persecution of Indians and rubber tappers in the Amazon goes unpunished; legislation to protect the environment goes unimplemented; and total violence increases as land seizures by the Movement of the Landless, cheered by the church, are met with police shootings of squatters. Despite these contradictions, perhaps, Brazilians, unique by default as the only Portuguese-speaking multiethnic society in the Americas, see little need for a more crisply delineated national identity. Moreover, other collective imperfections continue to make rationalization quite spotty. The administrative integrity of the state remains unimpressive. Brazil has always suffered from a severe gap between the written law and its implementation. This state of affairs continues despite the new constitution. Many of its provisions remain in limbo because enabling legislation has not been adopted. The bureaucracy has been in turmoil since the Collor administration because in his eagerness to shrink the state the president cut personnel and units without central plan or design. Among other missteps, he shrank the tax-gathering apparatus to such an extent that half of corporate taxpayers publicly flaunt their refusal to pay. Salaried people, however, cannot escape paying taxes because of compulsory withholding. New agencies are being created to subsume preexisting ones without consistent effort to assess their records. Since 1993, however, the president may ignore up to 3o percent of the appropriations passed by the legislature in his efforts to balance the budget. In many instances, voluntary organizations are taking the place of the state. Although this development hardly contributes to rationalized administration, it undoubtedly advances democratic participation. Thus, urban and rural poor, in seeking to help themselves through neighborhood and squatter organizations, create their own law through such practices as housing construction. Eventually, the state recognizes and honors the rules the poor have fashioned to compensate for official neglect. There is evidence that the poor who go through this process and also acquire the rudiments of education become conscious of their legal rights as citizens and henceforth organize to assert them.39 Brazil's foreign policy has shifted decisively into an assertion of independence. Despite some disagreements among the foreign ministry, the military, and the business community, there is a firm consensus on many points. Brazil must diversify its international ties and downgrade its relations with " Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, p. 187, cite unpublished public opinion data in support of these findings. A World Values Survey study in 1990 found that most respondents gave attachment to town or region as their first loyalty. Only 30.6 percent listed "country" first, but 86 percent said they were "proud" or "quite proud" of their country, though only 35.3 percent said they were willing to fight for Brazil in war.

2 09

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

the United States. In terms of hemispheric relations, Brazil must reduce the role of the OAS and stimulate all—Latin American ties instead. Thus, Brazil took the lead in creating an all-Latin collective security consultative group—the Rio Group—and in opposing a prodemocracy interventionist role for the OAS. And to enhance Brazil's global role, all insist on a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. The government also wishes to cement ties with other democratic governments in Latin America, but business is indifferent and the army opposed. The détente with Argentina negotiated by President Sarney and confirmed by his successors represents a major change after 15o years of rivalry; it included an agreement to suspend work on nuclear weapons and to allow mutual inspection of compliance; that agreement was opposed by the army. The government is committed to ecologically acceptable development plans in Amazonia and has concluded more agreements for collaboration with other Amazonian states; the army opposes this as a challenge to national security (and has expanded its own hightechnology surveillance in the area), while business remains indifferent. Economic integration provides the most compelling instances of the new policy of independent self-assertion. Business mostly agrees with the government, while the military remains unconcerned as long as supranational powers are not granted such agencies as the MERCOSUL. The government too insists that all major decisions remain in the hands of national authorities. Brazil openly opposes U.S. ideas for the creation of a hemisphere-wide free trade area and has advanced instead the idea of a South American free trade association. Pending its creation, however, the completion of the MERCOSUL is Brazil's primary economic objective. The government hopes to make a deep Argentine-Brazilian economic tie the cornerstone of a stronger collective negotiating position in global economic dealings. Business, at first excluded from the talks with Argentina, has now all but taken over the detailed encounters needed to draft joint regulations for specific sectors and activities.40 Learning to Live in a Liberal Nation? Brazilians, when queried about their lack of civil religion, point to the impeachment of President Collor and to the constitutionally correct succession as evidence of an evolving sense of public morality. Indeed, 4° Most business remains indifferent to the MERCOSUL because only 15 percent of Brazilian foreign trade is affected so far and neither clear winners nor losers have appeared. Many firms, however, have invested in the anticipation of growing regional trade. The government remains committed to the MERCOSUL because it fits its long-range strategy of freeing foreign trade and investment while enabling it to combat the remaining strong protectionist forces on the left and in the military. 210

Brazil during the impeachment crisis many people painted their faces in the Brazilian national colors. In addition to gloating about Brazil's winning the World Cup in soccer four times, people point with pride to the development of Amazonia as a national triumph. As for recognized national heroes, Brazilians' weak historical memory is manifest in their veneration instead of soccer players, television stars, race car drivers, musicians, and expert performers of the samba and the bossa nova. Exceptions to this picture also exist. Many people do identify Getillio Vargas and Luis Carlos Prestes as national heroes. A few even mention Dom Pedro II. In the sertiio of the Northeast, however, a different set of long-dead heroes is venerated: Zumbi, the leader of a slave revolt; Lampido, a bandit with a social conscience; and the Catholic schismatics Father Cicero and Antonio Silvino (the "Adviser") .41 With two glaring exceptions, the 1988 constitution enshrines a liberal system: the military holds on to its privileged status as guardian of the constitution and of law and order, and the core of corporatism is retained.42 The executive is weakened vis-à-vis the legislature, which must eventually approve decree laws adopted by the executive. Legislative power was strengthened especially with respect to budgetary and fiscal measures and the ratification of treaties. The creation of new public-sector enterprises and the levying of new taxes were restricted. In a remarkable step toward participatory governance, arrangements were made for referenda and citizen initiatives. The power of states and municipalities was enhanced, especially with respect to fiscal matters. Opposition parties have been doing well at the state level. On the whole, the burgeoning life of voluntary associations is given a big boost by the new legal order, enhancing their ability to make an impact on government. The abolition of the literacy requirement as a condition for voting was a major egalitarian reform. Even the populist reforms of 1932 had re41 For these and other items exploring the ahistorical memory of socially unmobilized peasants, see James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). Joseph A. Page, The Brazilians (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995), argues that the top national heroes are soccer players, popular musicians, and television actresses, along with Getfilio Vargas and Luis Carlos Prestes further down the list. " The military services, aided by President Sarney, managed to defeat the adoption of a parliamentary system, as well as retain their organizational autonomy from civilian control and obtain amnesty for past acts of repression. The status of the military remains ambiguous in some ways. President Cardoso merged the three armed services and appointed a single civilian minister of defense, the first time in Brazilian history that a uniformed chief was not chosen. The air force protested bitterly and publicly against this step while also fighting the civil airport system and some aerospace factories being taken from it. Even though Cardoso protested the acquittal of police commanders responsible for massacring peasants who had seized land, those guilty of the crime were not punished by Para courts remaining under local landlord influence. Military officers known to have been involved in the torture of leftists were nevertheless promoted and appointed to higher offices.

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tamed a literacy requirement, though the ballot was made secret and the age of entitlement to vote reduced to eighteen years. The literacy requirement had the practical effect of excluding the majority of blacks and caboclos from the political process. Their inclusion is likely to make a big difference. But public opinion does not sustain the hope that the principle of peaceful change has been firmly implanted. At the time of the crisis over Collor's impeachment only 42 percent declared that "democracy is preferable to any other form of government," whereas in 199o, 56 percent had thought that it was. In the opinion of Brazilians, the military did much better than the New Republic with respect to all actions of government, except those dealing with political liberties. Most people continued to believe that the justice system protects only the powerful and that the police readily kill innocent people." The future of race relations constitutes a danger to the continued practice of peacefully resolving domestic conflicts. As long as the bulk of the black population remained rural or concentrated in stagnant urban slums in the Northeast, isolated, illiterate, and poor, it was in no position to challenge effectively the white-dominated status quo. Increasingly, blacks are moving into the economically vibrant cities of the South and Southwest where they become mobilizable by active social movements. Under these circumstances, a black power movement may arise to challenge the myth of racial harmony with strident demands for special entitlements that the white majority may be unwilling to meet. Probably, the New Republic enjoys more legitimacy than any other Brazilian polity in the twentieth century, but that legitimacy is flawed just the same. We have seen that public preference for democracy is far from overwhelming. People acclaim the freedoms enjoyed since 1985 while blaming the regime for their economic travails. How long can political legitimacy survive the failure to raise living standards quickly? Large majorities do not believe that the state enforces the law impartially; they see the police as killers, not protectors." Seen in this perspective, the tremendous increase in voluntary associations, the growth of an enhanced sense of political empowerment on the part of the poor and ill-educated, is not necessarily a boon for liberal democracy. "Civil society" aids democratic consolidation only if the values of the newly empowered mesh with liberalism-as-procedure. If the procedures fail to yield satisfaction, the legitimacy of the institutions remains precarious. 43 These statistics come from Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, pp. 172-76. Supporting survey research data on poorly developed civic attitudes and labile support for democracy are reported in Lamounier, Ouvindo o Brasil, and Opinido Pablica ( July—August 1993): 1-36. 44 Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, pp. 176-77.

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Brazil Observers call attention to the fact that many Brazilians would have preferred the parliamentary system. The electoral law of proportional representation is very democratic but also self-destructive, because it favors personal individualism in small parties rather than disciplined big ones and therefore remains an invitation to instability. Others mention the unresolved coexistence of such incompatible institutions as participatory democracy and strong patron-client relations, social democracy and individual rights juxtaposed to a desire for untrammeled access to power by special interests that spurn the public weal—"corporatism" in the Brazilian sense. Yet the peaceful solution of the Collor crisis and the ready acceptance by the losing left of the results of the elections of 1994 and 1998 suggest that, for the moment, cynicism toward liberal ways has not carried the day. The lack of a clearly etched sense of national identity and purpose allows the continued coexistence of these incompatible elements. But then, it has been said that "Brazil is not a country where you operate with the logic of in or out, of right or wrong, of male or female, married or divorced, of God or the Devil, of black orwhite."45 If so, perhaps legitimacy is more easily attained there than elsewhere. The Paucity of Social Learning We found little evidence that Brazilians collectively learned to change their ways toward a more progressive fate for themselves. They rarely engaged in sober and systematic analysis about the failure of past policies and institutions; nor did they often revalue old objectives in favor of consensual new ones until the 195os. It has already become clear that there was much more collective learning in the realm of economic policy than in politics. Economic learning was manifest in the lessons of state-managed ISI as well as in its nemesis, neoliberal market-driven growth. Both entailed the use of policies based on systematic analysis in addition to ad hoc adjustments and choice derived from ideological conviction. Political learning was in evidence only in the deliberate liberal institution-building that drove the drafting of the 1988 constitution. And we saw how fragmentary that learning was. There is a larger political lesson, however, that perhaps Brazilians have learned since 1985: the downplaying of ideology in the articulation of political action. The origins, in 1688, of parliamentary government in England had much to do with the combat fatigue of elites who had " Roberto DaMatta, 0 que faz Brasil Brasil? (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Rocco, 1984), pp. 4o-41. Translation by William R. Hinchberger.

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fought and killed about religion in public life since 1640. All sides seemed to share a consensus that institutional means must be found to defuse ideological strife. Brazilians seem to have arrived at a similar consensus. The lack of a triumphant liberal nationalism in Brazilian history probably explains the lateness and weakness of a sense of national identity. Brazil achieved a very weak statehood because a tiny mobilized dissatisfied counter-elite took over from the old elites without having a distinct national vision. But modernization was stagnant, peasant and workingclass social mobilization barely a whisper, and liberalism discredited. We cannot speak of nationhood until the 193os. All this merely proves is the incompatibility of Type D nation-building with liberalism and progress. The Estado Novo, following a Type A pattern of state and nation-building, did a great deal better at modernizing and rationalizing and managed very well without liberal nationalism. The military dictatorship was even more skilled in modernizing and rationalizing, and it did so under weak integralist-nationalist auspices. Liberalism was clearly not necessary for Brazil's material progress or its gradual rationalization. The lack of a sense of civic responsibility among liberals might even have impaired learning had there been a stronger democratic force. Moreover, the weakness and the internal doctrinal contradictions of Brazil's integralist nationalism probably facilitated what learning did occur. Ideological flabbiness may have aided rationalization and allowed space for learning. Brazil is still becoming a nation-state. Type A nation-building was initiated without an inter-elite ideological consensus. Overall agreement did not emerge until 1988—if then. Liberals fought Marxist and right-wing integralists for fifty-five years; liberals did not emerge victorious until the new constitution prevailed. The experience of Brazil suggests that late-modernizing societies in which social mobilization resembles the explosion of a pressure cooker make very poor candidates for liberal democracy. That said, however, we must remember that the process is not yet over. The nation-state is still being made, and it may yet turn out to be liberal if the right lessons are learned. Nor is it impossible that Brazil may consider immersion in some powerful regional entity to take the place of the nation. What are these lessons? In economics, learning consists of using modes of analysis that are able to produce the objectives sought and to change those objectives if and when new analytic knowledge becomes available. Seen in this light, there has been some learning in Brazil. The massive shift to neoliberalism from state-led ISI was due to the example of the industrialized world and the pressure of its major multilateral institutions, as well as to sophisticated formal analysis. The "lessons" were partly im214

Brazil

posed from above, not wholly determined by negotiations among the parties most concerned or fully informed by the analysis of previous failures. True intergroup negotiations on economic policy were not introduced before the Cardoso administration. But they are being practiced now, a fact that gives credence to Albert Hirschman's thought that Latin American economists are learning to think contextually, not dogmatically, to entertain new possibilities and attempt to connect new threads of thought, rather than rely on textually hallowed models. Cardoso's sophisticated control of inflation and his shrewd monetary policies designed to shield Brazil from the fallout of Asian financial crises illustrate learning. "Cardoso has brought Brazil to the threshold of the modern era," comments Bolivar Lamounier.46 More learning, however, is evident in the political realm. Many Brazilian politicians and interest groups seem to have stumbled on the practice of diffuse reciprocity in their shared concern with overcoming tyranny. They have become less ideological in their behavior, more inclined to compromise what earlier seemed to be never-to-be-surrendered values.47 They seem to have learned how to avoid the kinds of confrontations that often lead to the winner's tyranny over all others. This learning has enabled elites to buy time while they seek to resolve some of the tensions that still keep legitimacy at a precarious level. 46 Quoted in New York Times, February 8, 1998. See also Albert 0. Hirschman, "The Political Economy of Latin American Development" (paper presented at the XIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Boston, October 23-25, 1986), pp. 41-43. 47 Bolivar Lamounier, however, argues that the increasing liberal legitimation of the New Republic is impeded by the unchanging selfishness and shortsightedness of Brazilian politicians who seem incapable of learning. See his "Brazil: The Hyperactive Paralysis Syndrome," in Jorge Dominguez and Abraham Lowenthal, eds., Constructing Democratic Governance: South America in the 19905 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 166-213. Cardoso's reform programs were stalled by opposition in Congress in 1997-98 consistent with Lamounier's analysis. Much the same conclusion can be drawn from the vindictive discourse about the government's belated efforts to deal with the drought of 1998 in the Northeast. Sociologist Vilmar Faria believes that Brazilians in general have learned that inflation should not finance the economy and that corruption is no longer acceptable as normal practice and must be rooted out and punished. The government has learned that immersion in a global economy demands important educational reforms that call for community involvement in schools, decentralization, and more sophisticated teacher training (personal communication).

2 15

CHAPTER FIVE

Mexico

Consider the changing meanings of the two main icons of national Mexican identity: the secular symbol provided by the Aztec emperor Cuauhtemoc and the Catholic figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Cuauhtemoc was used as early as 182o in school textbooks written by Liberals but excoriated by Conservatives.' To the Liberals, before 191o, he symbolized steadfast and heroic resistance to foreign invasion, the defense of indigenous institutions, first against Spain, then against the United States and France. After 19io Cuauhtemoc also came to stand for the defense of the poor peasants, the heirs of the indigenous culture, and for opposition to domestic and foreign oppression. By then everyone accepted Cuauhtemoc as the symbol of Mexico. Not so the Virgin of Guadalupe. The church made her an icon of allegedly pre-Conquest Catholicism as early as 1600, especially attractive to women to counter the cult of machismo and to Indians because of her I am grateful to Peter Kingstone and Michael Struett for research assistance. But my greatest gratitude goes to Wayne Sandholtz for outstanding research many years ago. Richard Snyder, Chris Ansell, and Kenneth Shadlen were kind enough to review the manuscript. All remaining errors are my own. ' These labels refer to nineteenth-century political parties. Liberals stood for a weak central government and anticlericalism; Conservatives believed in a centralized Catholic state committed to Hispanic culture. Neither believed in liberalism-as-process, the analytic meaning of "liberalism" used in this book. The ambivalence of many Mexicans about their ethnic-cultural heritage is symbolized by the reputation that still attaches to Cortes's Aztec concubine, la Chingada. The name is synonymous with shame and betrayal; in slang it is a strong term of opprobrium. Despite later, official worship of mestizaje, the symbolism of la Chingada questions the virtue of the ethnic mixture while casting doubt on the steadfastness of Indians. This theme is explored in detail by Octavio Paz in The Labyrinth of Solitude (New York: Grove Press, 1985). 216

Mexico

dark color. Father Hidalgo made her a symbol of his failed peasant revolt against Spain, thus giving an Indian flavor to the secessionist movement. She did not retain national political significance; it was Emiliano Zapata who, in 1911, again made her a symbol of peasant revolt. Her enormous popularity as a local saint in rural Mexico kept the anticlerical Porfiriato Liberals and the post-i g i o revolutionaries from challenging this unwanted expression of public religiosity.2 Nevertheless, with the growing secularization and urbanization of Mexico, the icon is fading. Icons they may have been and continue to be. But in fact they do not stand for any consistently experienced reality. Neither Catholicism nor Aztec culture commands much respect in contemporary political debate. No wonder Mexicans live in an ideational labyrinth. Is there a "real" Mexico? If so, who speaks for it? No single doctrine or movement ever did, nor does one now. Mexico's confused and even self-contradictory path toward nationstatehood was due to its origins in the conditions we label Type D. A weak colonial state and its elite were challenged by a counter-elite that was ambivalent in its cultural identification; some of its members continued to accept their Hispanic heritage whereas others identified with local folk culture or with French or American models. Social mobilization was frozen at a very low level. Industrialization was unknown. But the mobilized-unassimilated, though few in number, were extremely articulate in challenging Spain without having a clear idea of what to substitute. As also seen in the case of Brazil, and as we show here, Type D nationalism does not lend itself to the evolution of a national myth that can guide the modernization, mobilization, and integration of the polity into a nation-state. Nevertheless, some modernization and a good deal of social mobilization occurred during the first ninety years of Mexican independence. Lack of rationalization was evident in the fact that by i goo there was, for the second time, a critical mass of mobilized people who were not successfully assimilated into the ruling regime. They made the Revolution of 191o, which occurred under conditions described by our Type A. Alas, the subsequent history of Mexico's rationalization into a full-scale nation-state demonstrates that Type A nationalism need not inexorably lead to liberalism. In fact, we show that Mexico was successfully rationalIt is important to distinguish between public and private religiosity. Conservatives wanted to preserve the complete union of state and church; for them, Catholicism was both the state religion and the civil religion. Liberals wanted to separate the two but did not wish to interfere with private devotions. Catholicism was not their civil religion; they banned it from public education and also banned religious orders. Opinion differs whether the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe qualifies as a civil religion for all Mexicans. See Robert N. Bellah and Philip E. Hammond, Varieties of Civil Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, I980), pp. 44-86217

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

ized into a nation-state under integralist auspices. Whatever lip service was paid to syncretist themes hardly affected the course of events. Moreover, the ruling elite of this integralist nation-state was able to learn, to recognize failure, and to understand the reasons why it occurred. It learned to fashion institutions that constrained political conflict, and it also learned when the policies associated with these institutions ceased to be effective. At that point—around 1985—the regime began the process of political and economic liberalization. These changes involved, for the third time, a lack of balance between the rate of social mobilization and the successful assimilation of the mobilized to the status of proud and satisfied citizens of a self-confident nation-state. Derationalization beset Mexico as the gap widened between what seemed within reach, in terms of living standards, quality of life, and political freedom, and what actually took place. The struggle between liberal and integral nationalisms remains undecided. INDEPENDENT MEXICO: WEAK STATE, No NATION Chaotic Politics Lacking Social Mobilization The Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain successfully declared itself to be Mexico in 1821, after a civil war that had been unleashed in 1810 by Fathers Miguel Hidalgo and Jose Maria Morelos. It pitted two kinds of dissatisfied groups against the colonial power and its local supporters (peninsulares or, pejoratively, gachupines). Mexican-born Spaniards (criollos) resented their legal inferiority to, and their economic dependence on, the peninsulares, without contesting their European values and culture; criollos constituted the classic mobilized but unassimilated group. But Indians and those of mixed race and/or culture (mestizos) challenged the privileges and power of peninsulares and criollos. They were certainly unassimilated but remained barely mobilized.3 Moreover, they were defeated in the civil war. Actual independence was the work of criollo elites professing opposing interests. Some wanted a secular constitution (federalists), whereas others seceded because they opposed liberal reforms in Spain (clerical centralists). As it happened, independence was brought about by a gachupin general who made himself emperor, Agustin de Iturbide, soon to be overthrown by a criollo general, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. 3 I use these terms in their contemporary cultural meaning, not the racial-ethnic connotation they carried in the early nineteenth century. A criollo is a person professing Western values and following a modern lifestyle irrespective of racial or ethnic origins. A mestizo is a person who mixes modern and traditional beliefs and behaviors. An "Indian" (or indigenous person) stresses traditional features and usually speaks no or little Spanish.

218

Mexico

This cast set the scene for sixty years of civil war. It involved fighting among criollos as well as an almost uninterrupted series of Indian revolts. States and localities within states coalesced around local landownerbosses (caciques) as soon as the Spanish administration left. Holding their tenants in virtual serfdom, the caciques raised their own militias and fought with the regular army, which tended to control the cities. They also dominated local politics and ensured that much of the legislation passed in Mexico City was never implemented. In central and southern Mexico the hacienda system existed alongside smallholders and Indian claims. The power of the caciques varied directly with distance from the center. Because of the constant local warfare and pervasive banditry, dictators such as Santa Anna were welcomed at times. Social hierarchies were loosened and some economic opportunities improved because of the departure of the peninsulares after 1821. This allowed space for the slow upward thrust of the mestizos. Their gradual acceptance as almost-equals by the criollos, however, confirmed the totally subordinate status of the unmobilized and unassimilated peasantry, smallholder or tenant, Indian or mestizo. Mexican politics before 1910 was the game of a small elite, mostly criollo but featuring increasing mestizo participation. Presidents came and went with bewildering rapidity; so did constitutions, which alternated between proclerical and anticlerical provisions, decentralized (federal) and highly centralized (Conservative) arrangements. Santa Anna was the ubiquitous power broker, many times president himself though not reliably aligned with either party. The apparent victory of the secular-liberal reformers led by Benito Juarez (La Reforma, in Mexican history) in 1857 was followed by the rule of Emperor Maximilian, supported by French troops and money, invited to Mexico by the defeated clerical conservatives. The "national" war against France was really a civil war; even during the troubles with the United States, between 1835 and 1847, many Mexican Liberals had supported the secession of Texas and welcomed the subsequent American invasion. Yet, even during the French episode and the wars of La Reforma, the struggles were local rather than "national." In central Mexico these conflicts were expressions of local feuds over land rights, shifting alliances among rural caciques, and efforts by local militias to suppress Indian land claims. Nevertheless, the turmoil of the 186os resulted in the renewed social mobilization of some rural strata sufficient to bring about, in the honest election in 1876, the presidency of a hero of the anti-French war, Porfirio Diaz. He was a mestizo; his mentor, President Benito Juarez, had been a Zapotec Indian. Around 185o half the population was still fully Indian. The vast majority, Indian and mestizo, lived in small villages not linked to major cities. Nationalist ideologies were professed by the elites 219

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

who dominated in provincial capitals and in Mexico City. All thirteen hundred schools were located in these cities, enrolling less than 1 percent of a population estimated at 7.5 million. Most loyalties were focused on the patria chica, the local scene. Between Syncretism and Liberalism For the deans of the contemporary interpreters of Mexico, Carlos Fuentes and Leopoldo Zea, there was no Mexican nation before "The Revolution," before the events of 1910-20. The Revolution itself provided the myth that eventually inspired the nation. Until then there were expressions of national sentiment that tended to deplore what was seen by most of the elite as the inherent cultural inferiority of Mexicans because of their hybrid culture and ethnic makeup, and to look for ways to improve matters by imitating foreign models. Even the heroes of La Reforma shared this view. The trauma of military defeat removed some of the doubts about national identity. Loss of the northern half of Mexico to the United States discredited the old politicians. Those who resisted the gringos, notably the Nirios Heroes of Chapultepec, are glorified still today. Fear, distrust, and hatred of America became common themes in folk ballads; learned editorials with similar messages in the press served the same purpose for the literate elite. The war against France, fifteen years later, offered socially mobilized Mexicans an external "other" to give them an identity. Their ephemeral victory over the French in 1862 at Puebla is still celebrated as the Cinco de Mayo, Mexico's first success at resisting invasion. But not a consensual identity. Pro-church Conservatives continued to identify with Spain as the matrix of their values; anticlerical Liberals looked to Britain and the United States for their models. Conservatives defended inequality as the natural order. They favored a strong executive, the continuation of special privileges for the military and clergy, industry, and tariffs. The liberals of La Reforma thought of themselves as Jeffersonians; they espoused the breakup of haciendas, a country of small farmers, free trade, individual self-reliance, and they opposed industrialization. As for a constitutional order, Conservatives were traditional syncretists whereas their opponents tended toward liberal nationalism. Unlike a small group of reformist syncretists, Liberals and Conservatives agreed in their contempt of the indigenous Indians, in their automatic identification with the Hispanic cultural tradition. That small group of reformist syncretists, sometimes called "creole radicals," occa220

Mexico

sionally allied itself with La Reforma in the hope of bringing about land reform and restoration of land rights to Indian communities—a program the Liberals refused to enact. The radicals made Hidalgo and Morelos icons of indigenist self-assertion. They combined respect for Indian culture with republican constitutional preferences. Their program failed, but their symbols became those of the Revolution of 191o, including the glorification of the Aztec past as representing the true Mexico.4 The Liberals, who succeeded in driving out the French by 1867 and in executing the hapless Emperor Maximilian, initiated a policy of persecuting the church and nationalizing church property; they also continued the alienation of communally owned Indian lands. They put their faith in markets and capitalism rather than in political reform. Many also became fervent Comtian positivists who believed in the inevitability of Westernstyle scientific, economic, and social evolution. Their Social Darwinism was cosmopolitan; it disdained any kind of articulate nationalism, whereas Conservatives remained wedded to a Hispanic-Catholic Mexicanism. Some, following the creole radicals, identified social progress with the advent of la raza, mestizo Mexico. Yet even they were unsure of what to do about the Indian. Clearly, the concatenation of Type D conditions made it impossible to agree on a national myth. Disagreement, shame, and confusion about ethnicities prevented the Virgin of Guadalupe or Cuauhtemoc from being generally accepted as Mexico's symbol. Juarez in 1867 created the National Preparatory School, the secondary school that was to graduate many of Mexico's subsequent leaders. His minister of education, Gabino Barreda, gave it a rigorous positivist curriculum designed to stimulate progressive and scientific thinking. He intended positivism to become Mexico's civil religion. Not unnaturally, the civil servants who were its graduates became known as cientf ficos. Primary education was made free and compulsory, though few schools were actually built. Here, too, the principles of positivism were to rule. By the early 187os a mere 5 percent of children of school age, or 349,000 students, were actually enrolled. 4 The earliest Mexican writer to worry about the compatibility of Aztec and Hispanic features in forming the Mexican culture was Servando de Mier, a sometime priest turned revolutionary. He believed in many of the same incompatible values as did Hidalgo: Masonic liberalism, Indian rights, economic self-sufficiency via a revival of artisanship, Catholic theology, and descent of contemporary Mexican culture from the Aztecs. Another early advocate of indigenist views was Carlos Maria de Bustamante. He and his followers thought of Hidalgo and Morelos as heirs and avatars of Moctezuma and Cuauhtemoc. These views did not find acceptance among the liberals of La Reforma. The mestizos who came to dominate after 187o showed as little interest in their Aztec ancestry as in their debt to Spain. Mostly, they were motivated by resentment of remaining criollo privileges. Identification with indigenist symbols seems purely instrumental. See D. A. Brading, The First America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

221

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Lurching toward Secular Modernity The first generations of post-1910 Mexican intellectuals condemned the long dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, the Porfiriato (1876-191o), as an unmitigated disaster, another humiliation for Mexican nationalism punctuated by giving away the country's resources to foreigners. Diaz himself is said to have sighed, "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States." The contrast with post-1910 events enables these intellectuals to celebrate what they see as the true birth of the Mexican nationstate after the defeat of the Porfiriato. In fact, the Porfiriato, seen as the successor to La Reforma, really launched the economic and social modernization of Mexico under the cosmopolitan ideological auspices of positivism. Even though it maintained decades of relative peace, subsequent events exposed the apparent rationalization as very superficial. As if sensing this superficiality, the Diaz regime actively encouraged nationalism in its educational policies, articulated but not consistently carried out by Justo Sierra after 189o. Education—once more—was declared to be obligatory and dedicated to the achievement of a spirit of national civic unity, of a better citizenry. To that end, the teaching of Mexican history and of Spanish was to be stressed, for the first time in uniform terms throughout the country. Sierra wanted the teaching of patriotic history to eventuate in a new civic religion; evidently, he knew his Rousseau. He, along with many others, regretted that Mexicans were believed to lack confidence in themselves. His remedy was to teach Mexican history as the successful blending of Indian and European influences, thus giving Mexicans a sense of uniqueness and pride in their mixed ancestry.5 By 1910 the unassimilated Indian population had shrunk to 37 percent in a population of 17 million; 43 percent were now mestizos, Indians who had selectively assimilated to criollo ways, while the criollo population still accounted for 20 percent. Even though 7o percent remained illiterate, mestizaje had become a concept conferring an identity to be 5 The idea of social evolution also inspired a school of historians who flourished after 197o. Vicente Riva Palacios, Jose de Cuellar, and Jose Maria Vigil started the movement for the systematic study of Mexican rural folk history and of Precolumbian life in a search for "the national soul" and "typical Mexicanness." Like other positivists, they thought that progress would come only with a shedding of the Hispanic and the indigenous past. See Henry C. Schmidt, The Roots of Lo Mexicano (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1 974)• Positivists believed that the final victory of scientific-social progress over religion in general and Catholicism in particular would be won in Mexico. Juarez believed that education must lead all Mexicans to think in scientific terms. Hence, the positivist club, Asociacion Metodofila, was to function as the integralist party to lead Mexico to the cherished cosmopolitan goal. Obviously, many Liberals disagreed with this notion. See Leopoldo Zea, Positivism in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974).

222

Mexico valued, actively fostered by the regime's removal of discrimination in education and appointments. Private foreign capital was seen as the engine of Mexico's progress. In order to attract it, primarily to extractive enterprises, Diaz ruthlessly repressed movements that challenged the continuing privatization of church and Indian communal lands. Gabino Barreda stressed the duty of the state to create order and to train Mexicans to become good servants of society. Material development had to precede democracy, a claim used to justify neglect of the democratic constitution of 1857. Another cientifico argued that "we have already realized an infinity of rights which produce only misery and distress in society. Now we are going to try a bit of notable tyranny to see what effect it might produce."6 Diaz paid off foreign claims, adopted the gold standard to reassure foreign investors, reduced tariffs and increased foreign trade almost ten times between 1876 and 191o, and built fifteen thousand miles of railway track. He also launched the steel industry of Monterrey and began drilling for oil. Table 5-1 shows the threshold of modernization created by the Porfiriato from which Mexico developed later. Yet successful modernization caused the downfall of the regime. A wealthy and educated professional middle class grew up which came to resent the nondemocratic ways of the Porfiriato and its close ties to foreign investors, especially American. Until it reached the point of active resentment, however, the new middle class had embraced the positivist slogan of "order and progress." Eventually, these newly mobilized strata demanded their place at the table of power. Having been denied, they seized the state created by Diaz. Mexico now followed the path of Type A to nation-statehood. CREATING A STATE AND INVENTING A NATIONAL MYTH A Cacophany of "Revolutionary" Voices Between 1910 and 1930 Mexico underwent a second revolution that created a new state, and invented a national myth for it, but did not succeed in rationalizing the structure into a nation-state until 1940. The deceptive, frozen pattern of superficial rationalization of the Diaz years gave rise to ten years of extremely bloody civil war among revolutionaries unable to agree about the goals of their challenge to the Porfiriato; the five chief leaders all became victims of assassination. Who the revolutionaries were and what they sought is our next topic. Zea, Positivism in Mexico, p. 235. 2 23

Table 5-1. Mexico: Indicators of modernization 1900

1930

1950

1960

1970

1990

Outlay on public debt as percent of total federal expenditures (annual average in some periods)'

32.3

4.7 (1930-32)

15.4 (1947-52)

26.0 (1959-63)

19.14 (1968-72)

65.8 (1987-88)

Land distribution (million hectares)b

-

1.7

4.8

11.4

14.1

(1952)

(1964)

3.0 (1988)

54.2 18.9 26.8 11.3

39.4 22.9 37.7 13.0

2 5.4 12.9 61.7 22.5

10.0

2.3 (1980)

Labor force' % in agriculture % in industry % in services Total (thousands)

61.2 15.7

70.2 15.0

58.3 15.9

2 3.1 5.4

14.8 5.2

25.7 8.3

23.5

37.3 (1929)

9.7 (1947-52 )

6.o

Social services and public health expenditures (% of federal budget)e

6.2

3.1

9.7

1 4.0

18.5 (1980)

Education expenditures (% of federal budget)e

11.4

9.1

12.8

26.7

18.1 (1980)

Growth of manufacturing (index 1963 = 1 oo)f

24 (1938)

44

66

189

16.6

25.8

Military expenditures (% of federal budget, average per year)d

Population (millions)g GNP per capita (US $)1

(1959-63)

(1940)

(1940)

13.6

(1957) 480 (1965)

48.2

81.3

730

2,580

a James W. Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 108-9, and James W. Wilkie, ed., Society and Economy in Mexico (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, University of California, 1990), p. 63. h Wilkie, Society and Economy in Mexico, p. 7. • La economia mexicana en cifras, 11th ed. (Mexico City: Nacional Financiera, 1990), p. 48, and 14th ed. (Mexico City: Nacional Financiera, 1995), p. 27. Services include financial and securities services and government. d Wilkie, Mexican Revolution, pp. 102-3. • United Nations, Statistical Yearbook for 1951, 1952, 1963, 1973, 1982. f Paul Bairoch, Economic Development of the Third World since 1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 75.

g Anuario estadistico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (Mexico City: Institute Nacional de Estadistica, Geografia e Informatica, 1990). h World Tables 1995, and Social Indicators of Economic Development 1996, World Bank Socio-Economic Times Series Access and Retrieval System, CD-Rom Version 3.0, May 1993. GNP is calculated at current purchaser values in U.S. dollars, using the World Bank Atlas methodology.

Mexico

Put abstractly, the first century of Mexican independence illustrates the inability of actors following the path of Type D to rationalize society into a nation-state. The second century tests the ability of Type A to improve the record by giving Mexico, in effect, an entirely new start. The mobilized but unassimilated counter-elite who toppled the cientificos was a motley crowd, including prominent members of the middle class created by the Porfiriato's policies but also counting left-wing intellectuals and oppressed Indians among its members. All acted in a setting that had remained feudal in many ways. Life in most of Mexico was still dominated by a rural existence centered on large haciendas and mining properties, owned by educated criollos and mestizos or by foreign investors and worked by exploited and uneducated mestizos and Indians. Politics remained the game of local caciques; what mattered was whether the cacique (and his retainers) was allied with the Porfiriato or not. If he was, he received material and status rewards; if he was not, he was mobilized but very unassimilated into the power structure and prone to attribute his exclusion to intolerable official corruption. However, he did not challenge the essentially Hispanicist values of the rulers. Nor did he disdain making temporary alliances with the Porfirist elite. In short, the initial revolutionaries were local notables at odds with the rulers. What were they at odds about? In the North, the leaders of the Revolution were upwardly mobile educated people, for the most part, who felt their careers and aspirations blocked by Porfirist policies of favoring foreign investors, mostly American. The regime's tight money policy threatened the financial fortunes of some, including the Revolution's first leader, Francisco Madero. Some were simply local politicians excluded from the trough; they professed no nationalist ideology at all.' Madero and his followers, including Venustiano Carranza, his successor as revolutionary leader, espoused the doctrines typical of Whiggish liberal nationalists, favoring constitutional democracy and free markets but lukewarm about social and economic reform. These leaders, when challenged, tended to veer toward integralism in choosing the means to sustain themselves. There were also many intellectuals—mostly of independent means— who espoused a more militantly reformist ideology than these leaders. At first they were allied with the Whiggish middle class; but after Madero began to form a coalition with some cientificos, they went into opposition. Some of them were socialists, others anarchists. Unlike the constituThis is the thesis of Francois Xavier Guerra, Del Antiguo Regimen a la Revolucion (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura EconOmica, 1988). He attributes the causes of the Revolution to the growing patrimonialism of the Porfiriato and its abandonment of the liberal market economics desired by the notables among the revolutionary leaders. 225

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

tionalist leaders, they often favored Indian rights and indigenist cultural themes, suggesting an attachment to Jacobin nationalism.8 What about the agrarian radicals who followed Emiliano Zapata? The Zapatistas, from their base in the state of Morelos, came to dominate the South for a short period, during which they engaged in radical land reform, restoring communal lands to Indians who had earlier been victims of land seizures. The movement, however, never espoused the beliefs associated with any form of nationalism; it was successfully suppressed by the constitutionalists, before they turned against each other in the northern civil war in which one million people lost their lives. Who, then, were the followers? Economic crises and hardships in the modern sector of the Mexican economy triggered a mass following from the ranks of mobilized labor. Several bitter strikes occurred between 1907 and 1910 which radicalized the workers because of the brutality of the repressive means used by the government. Yet, with the exception of the southern peasant revolt, the rural population remained mostly outside the struggle. Rebel officials were mostly lawyers, teachers, engineers, journalists, and clerks. The rebel armies, however, were recruited largely on the basis of material, not ideological, appeals. Soldiers were paid at a rate higher than they could hope to earn as peasants. They were induced to sign up by being given bonuses. Revolutionary leaders bribed troops to abandon their chiefs and to join others, by offering either higher ranks or more money. Toward a National Myth Despite the cacophony of revolutionary voices, a modicum of ideological unity prevailed: "Never again can we hide our Indian, mestizo, European faces: they are all ours," wrote Carlos Fuentes.9 This was the result of the ideological synthesis initiated by Presidents Obregon and Calles in the 1920S. Its first expression was the Constitution of 1917, a document of iconic power in shaping Mexican national identity, despite the fact that nonimplementation trumps faithful adherence to its norms. The constitution proclaimed a secular liberal-nationalist order with important col8 Among the group the following are considered important contributors to revolutionary thought (though not to policy): Camilo Arriaga, who professed an anarchoid Jacobin nationalism; and Antonio Diaz y Gama, advocate of indigenist anarchism and contributor to the famous article 27 of the 1917 constitution. Other left-wing nationalist writers included Librado Rivera and Ricardo Flores Magon. Jose Vasconcelos later became an important contributor to the national myth scripted by Presidents Alvaro Obregon and Plutarco Calles. Protestant missionaries strongly supported the Revolution, but the intellectuals vacillated in embracing this help. Many, despite their anticlericalism, felt that Protestantism was not authentically Mexican. 9 Carlos Fuentes, A New Time for Mexico (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996), p. 67. 22 6

Mexico

lectivist components: the enjoyment of private property was subordinated to the public good it is to serve; the state assumed ultimate control of mineral, land, and water resources; labor was given special protection; the rights of Indians to communal lands were reaffirmed (art. 27). Foreigners, in order to be allowed to own property, had to pledge not to invoke the protection of their home governments. Then, as now, to be "constitutional"—though the document is frequently amended—lends "revolutionary" legitimacy to the leadership. Yet, in the hands of successive presidents, the liberalism was less evident than a penchant toward integralism. The state persecuted the Catholic Church, exercised censorship over the media, imposed controls on labor, and sought (unsuccessfully) to control business as well. By 193o rule by a single party was consolidated. None of these steps was authorized by the constitution. Yet President Carranza believed that such measures, rather than the full implementation of the collectivist provisions of the constitution, would create a consensual Mexican identity and widespread popular loyalty to the new state. Anti-imperialism, and especially anti-Americanism, also helped bring about a heightened sense of national identity. Resentment of the favored treatment the cientificos gave foreign investors had been one reason for the middle-class revolt. Anti-American feeling among working people was aroused by the bloody repression of strikes against American firms. Even though the Wilson administration supported the Constitutionalist faction, the American invasion to capture Pancho Villa angered everyone. Still, it was not easy to overcome past ideological divisions with an all-Mexican national doctrine. Doing so required of the ideological architects that they blend and combine a number of rival claimants to the honor of defining Mexicanness. Keeping the gringos out of Mexico and safeguarding the integrity of Mexican culture—yet to be defined— against American corruption were popular unifying themes. Yet more pointed visions articulated by various camps did not go away. We must review them before seeing how they fared. Although Mexican thinkers and politicians never took seriously the Latin-flavored continentalism—designed to oppose Anglo-Saxon capitalist hegemony—that occasionally surfaced in South America, the culturalethnic variant known as Arielism commanded significant attention among Mexican intellectuals.10 The central figure is the essayist and educational reformer Jose Vasconcelos. 10 Modern continentalism owes its origin to the work of Manuel Ugarte and his notion of La Patria Grande. See A. P. Whitaker and D. C. Jordan, Nationalism in Contemporary Latin America (New York: Free Press, 1966), chap. 9. Vasconcelos is analyzed by Cesar Gralia, "Cultural Nationalism," Social Research (Winter 1962): 413-14. Vasconcelos, despite his

227

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

He celebrated the mestizo as the carrier of Mexican identity because mestizaje incorporates the Indian essence of the ancient civilizations antedating Europe's while partaking of the European accretions. The mestizo would be the future, la raza cosmica. As in South American Arielism, this race incorporates the values of Catholic spirituality, not the materialism of the Anglo-Saxons. In its Mexican emanation Arielism was distinctly populist and reformist. Indigenismo, the celebration of Mexico as Indian, overlapped and opposed the worship of mestizaje. Indigenists tended to distrust mestizo culture. Manuel Gamio, the father of modern Mexican anthropology, articulated a nationalist ideology that associated Mexico's troubles with the unruly and unsettled aspects of mestizo culture. Samuel Ramos argued that the horrors of the European conquest deformed Indian culture; thus he explains the unsettled and ambiguous strains of modern Mexican culture." Whether Indian or mestizo, the ideologists stressed the non-Western roots of Mexicanness as the true genius of the people. They articulated a kind of reformist syncretism that sought to embed the modernizing changes associated with the Revolution in a nativist, Precolumbian matrix. Many of the criollo liberal nationalists who started the Revolution, however, continued to believe in Western-style democracy and capitalism and in self-reliant efforts to work for material improvement. "In order to reconstruct the country, to get on the road to progress," said Francisco Madero, "everyone should rely on himself . . . on his individual and collective efforts."12 anti-Western bias, was a follower of Henri Bergson and Jose Ortega y Gasset. So was his colleague Antonio Caso, who advocated a Catholic national identity that was dismissive of indigenist themes. It is sobering to recall that these appeals to antimaterialist thought lost out in Latin America by the end of World War II to the arguments of such arch-materialists as Karl Marx, Adam Smith, and John Maynard Keynes. It is equally sobering to note the similarity between the politically ineffectual pensadores, who preached indigenism, Hispanicism, continentalism, and the sacred mission of mestizo culture between 1890 and 193o, and the Russian Slavophiles now and in the nineteenth century. Both felt ambivalent toward the West and its success: they envied its power and wealth as they despised its materialism and cold rationalism. Most resolved their ambivalence by means of a fuzzy, romantic celebration of alleged local tradition. " See Claudio Lomnitz-Adler, Exits from the Labyrinth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), for an excellent analysis of the indigenist ideologies. These thinkers all embraced some version of the idea that buried under the debris of aborted modernism, within the labyrinth that is Mexican culture, there is a "deep Mexico," the bearer of an authentic (Indian) culture that has been and continues to be suppressed since the sixteenth century. For a recent restatement of this theme, see Guillermo Bonfil, Mexico Profundo (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996). 12 Quoted in Schmidt, Roots of Lo Mexicana p. 71, from a speech made in 1911, as published in Documentos historicos de la Revolucion Mexicana, ed. Isidro Fabela, 5:431-32. 22 8

Mexico

Instead of choosing among alternative justifications and arguments, the rulers adopted all of them and presented them as the new Mexican national myth, an unintegrated amalgam of modern Western values, themes alleged to be Indian, and paeans to a concocted mestizo culture. And yet it worked because the rulers of the new Mexico gave mere symbolic expression to the mixture, they did not carry it consistently into the policies they adopted. The new educational system makes the point. True to the new myth, the government made a serious effort to improve rural welfare by means of intensified rural education. It created the first national ministry of education, headed by Jose Vasconcelos. It trained teachers to teach Indians in their own languages how to improve agricultural.practices and village sanitation; the same was done for mestizo peasants. Efforts to combat illiteracy were made on a massive scale, but only in Spanish. Teachers were expected to diffuse knowledge of practical skills along with a love for nationalism and socialism. Though committed to Indian redemption, Vasconcelos instructed the teachers to impart a knowledge of the Mexican Revolution, of the need to be proud of its achievements as progressive. Teachers were to organize cooperatives and instruct peasants in how to obtain agricultural credit. The objective of the educational campaigns was to mobilize peasants for collective material efforts, to develop the country, and to make a modern nation of it, not to strengthen traditional institutions and values, whether Catholic or Aztec. Indigenismo was a set of state-sponsored symbols—murals, excavations, statues, paintings, poems, and slogans—not a substantive program for making Indians and mestizos proud of their premodern heritage. The heirs of the Revolution, in fact, enacted the civic education program planned by Justo Sierra, adding only a socialist slant. Even Lazaro Cardenas, the great populist president, admitted that he favored the Indian-flavored national myth only to provide symbolic legitimation for making everyone learn Spanish more quickly.'3 Toward Partial Rationalization By 193o, as a result of deliberate policy, social mobilization was clearly accelerating without being nearly complete. The Revolution succeeded in spurring primary school enrollments, literacy, and knowledge of Spanish. Urbanization picked up slightly, but agriculture continued to be the main occupation (see table 5-2). Large blocks of peasants remained unmobilized, yet the agrarian leaders were literate and politically sophis13 Josefina Vazquez de Knauth, "Mexico: Education and National Integration,"Journal of Contemporary History ( July 1967) : 203-14.

229

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

ticated. The national administrative leadership was disproportionately composed of the victorious "generals" and their retainers, mostly from the northwestern states, on the whole far less educated than the officials of the Porfiriato had been. Table 5-2. Mexico: Indicators of social mobilization 1900

1930

Voting participation % of voting-age population registered' % of registered voters voting in presidential elections' School enrollments (% of age group) Primary (ages 6-14) b Postprimary (ages 15-24)c

42.0 0.3

1950

1970

1990

18.2 (1952) 73 (1952)

42.6

72.9 (1988) 50 (1988)

48.7 8.1

72.7 22.0

55.0 87.4

44.4

65

Literacy (% of population)"

25.8

40.7

55.9

76.3

Percent of population living in towns of more than too,000c

3.1

10.2

15.1

35.1

Spanish and an indigenous language

7.6

7.6

Only an indigenous language

8.5

3.6

Only Spanish

83.9

88.8

7.6 (1960) 3.7 (1960) 88.7 (1960)

98.0

Percent of population over 5 speaking'

Percent of population with radio accessg

78.2

Number of households with radios

6,275,589

Percent of population with TV Access

32.7

Number of households with TVg

2,589,051

Number of cinema facilitiesg

1,769

1,054

NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained. a Kenneth Ruddle and Philip Gillette, eds., Latin American Political Statistics (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1972), p. 111; Wilkie, Society and Economy in Mexico, p. 53. b Mexico, Quinto Censo de Poblacion, Resumen general (1930) ; Anuario estadistico, various years. James W. Wilkie, Statistics and National Policy (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1974), p. 197; Social Indicators of Development 1991. a Resumen general; Anuario estadistico (1954); Christopher J. Martin, Schooling in Mexico (Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1994). • Resumen general; Anuario estadistico. € Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, Democracy in Mexico (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 219. g Anuario estadistico (1970-71), pp. 180, 306.

230

Mexico

Yet the revolutionary leaders managed to score progress toward making the country a rationalized nation-state, as shown in table 5-3. Revolts continued to plague Mexico, some due to continuing rivalries among the leaders. The bloody Cristero Revolt (1926-29), however, was fought by devout peasants against an atheist state. It was unique in that the core issue was a national one. Most peasant revolts dealt with purely local issues; they betoken a lack of social mobilization and underline the superficiality of all rationalization before the 194os." The fickleness of political alliances during the 192os is evident; thus President Calles strongly favored labor over agrarian interests at one point and then reversed himself when instrumental considerations dictated the switch. Stability did not come until the invention of the corporatist formula implemented by the authoritarian party Calles eventually founded, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The rationalization achieved by the 196os did not rely exclusively on the successful creation and manipulation of ideologies and symbols. These were probably necessary but hardly sufficient. Equally important Table 5-3. Mexico: Extent of rationalization 1850 1880 1910 1930 1950 1980 1997 Political succession no yes no no yes yes some National myth in education no yes yes yes yes yes yes Religious institutions no some no yes some yes yes Civil religion no no no some some yes some Cultural uniformity yes yes some no yes yes some Language yes yes yes yes yes yes yes Income distribution no no no some some some no Workers' organizations N/A no no some yes some no Farmers' organizations N/A no no yes yes yes some Payment of taxes some yes no some some some some Conscription N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Fighting wars yes N/A yes N/A N/A N/A yes Administrative cohesion no some no some yes some no Foreign policy some yes no yes yes some no Peaceful change no yes no some yes some some Legitimacy no yes no some yes some no Total (%)

31

64

23

61

86

75

50

14 Table 5-3 gives a rationalization score of 61 for 1930; if 1929 had been chosen, the score would have been lower because of the assassination of President-Elect Alvaro Obregon and the rebellion of Gonzalo Escobar, one of his main retainers. That rebellion was followed by the sacking of four state governors, the execution or exile of several generals, and the impeachment of fifty-one congressmen. On peasant revolts, see John Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).

231

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

was the ability of the government to accelerate the process of social mobilization by means of educational and economic policies while managing to maintain a balance between the mobilization of peasants and their assimilation into new forms of social organization and economic activities. The expanding economy was able to provide employment for the newly urbanized even if rural living standards improved very slowly. The growing bureaucracy offered careers to university graduates, as did the new industries. The most important ingredient for maintaining a stable mobilization-assimilation balance, however, was the Mexican formula of state corporatism. TOP-DOWN NATION-STATE BUILDING (1930-1985) The success of the Revolution by no means eliminated some very basic contradictions in Mexican public life. The years between 1930 and 1970 continued to feature them. Thus, in principle, revolutionary Mexico was devoted to modernization, populism, and autonomy. The task the heirs of the Revolution set themselves was to modernize Mexican economic and social life, to cater to the needs of the popular sectors—labor and the peasantry—by means of a state-led mixed economy, and to achieve these objectives by keeping foreign capitalism and imperialism at bay. Alongside this program, however, we find top-down authoritarian rule by newly created powerfully centralized institutions that maintained a vacillating and incoherent relationship with traditional elements, mercilessly manipulated the popular forces they claimed to represent, and, after 1940, made quiet deals with the imperialists. Yet the state was built and a sense of national identity was fostered. Authoritarian Institutions State-building succeeded because, for the first time in Mexican history, a formula was found to include all modernizing forces in one political machine that came to monopolize the exercise of power and the dispensing of patronage. That machine wedded an all-powerful executive—the presidency—to an all-powerful political party, the PRI.15 15 In many ways, the Mexican system of governance between 193o and 1985 resembles Italian fascism. The single party served the state, not the reverse, as under communism and Nazism. The party was used as a means of ideological mobilization and the dispensing of patronage to loyal supporters. Both made the chief executive a superhuman icon. The pattern of corporatist inclusion was similar in both countries, as were the policies of unrelenting modernization relying on a few traditional themes and symbols for legitimation. Both systems avoided the totalitarian rigors of Germany and the communist world.

232

Mexico President Lazar() Cardenas (1934-40) established the institution of a one-term presidency of six years; during that sexenio the president is king; upon completion of his term he fades into obscurity, but only after choosing his successor. The powerful bureaucracy serves at his pleasure. The legislature became a ceremonial forum for rewarding loyal PRI activists, not a lawmaking body; the judiciary acquired no role in political decision making. Though Mexico is formally a federation of states, there is no tradition of legal separation of powers between center and states. The builders of the new Mexican state made sure the erstwhile predominance of local and state interests became a thing of the past. Mexico, almost alone among Latin American countries, tamed its armed forces after 1920 by making them completely subservient to the presidency and to state governors. The forces were depoliticized and professionalized in the Cardenas years and put to repressing internal dissent. They ruthlessly contained urban unrest and fought rural revolts often triggered by the failure of the state to honor its commitments to distribute land to individual peasants or to communal ejidos. They also maintained order during elections, usually on behalf of PRI candidates. Officers frequently served as civilian bureaucrats when the president wished. The president often removed elected state governors and appointed officers in their place. In addition, the armed forces perform many duties of civic action and emergency services, though some of the functions they took on before 1990 may now be undergoing change. Yet the system never became totalitarian. True, elections were rigged when victory for the PRI seemed in doubt. Frequent changes in the electoral law were made to ensure token representation of opposition parties, especially at the state level. Excesses in the persecution of Catholics were punished and the anticlerical laws gradually relaxed after 1940. During the oil nationalization crisis of 1938, a great patriotic and symbolic event, Catholics went out of their way to support the state in its fight against imperialism.16

16 The situation during the Cardenas sexenio is covered in Lyle C. Brown, "Mexican Church-State Relations," Journal of Church and State 6 (Spring 1964): 202-22. The Catholic Church has learned to avoid political issues, and the state now ignores theology. All this was made easier by the marginal role of the church in Mexican religiosity. Most rural Mexican believers worship local saints and at the two "national" shrines, those of the Virgin of Guadalupe and of the Black Christ of Chalma. They attach little importance to the sacraments and do not rely on resident priests. See Robert E. Quirk, "Religion and the Mexican Social Revolution," in W. V. D'Antonio and Frederick B. Pike, eds., Religion, Revolution, and Reform (New York: Praeger, 1964), pp. 59-72.

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Presidents Calles and Cardenas, though they became bitter enemies, were innovative leaders. They invented the institution for including and rewarding all revolutionary leaders and their followers by creating the corporatist format for the PRI. The party was made up initially of four autonomous "sectors," later reduced to three: labor interests, agrarian interests (the peasantry), the "popular" sector, and the military. Major private business was left outside the official structure of interest representation. After the military was purged and socialized, it lost its institutionalized role. The "popular" sector comprised government employees, small merchants, urban neighborhood associations, and private landowners. Sector organizations exist at the state and local levels as well. In principle, the sectors are supposed to channel the interests of their members upward to the state; in fact, the opposite happens just as frequently. At the local level people support their sector organizations because that is the simplest way to extract benefits from the state. Only those who basically opposed the entire system did not play the game. The system really worked in favor of these sectors only during the Cardenas years. It was then used to mobilize support for large-scale land distribution to ejidos, to raise the wages and other benefits of industrial workers, and to improve education and rural welfare. All these policies were slowed down or reversed by 195o as the socialist content of the Revolution was abandoned, though not the dominance of the state. Deflationary policies were pursued by most presidents after 195o. The labor sector initially opposed them but nevertheless accepted and implemented them eventually, though the will of the state was often sweetened with a few concessions.17 Peaceful change prevailed, on balance, despite the occasional outbreak of local violence. In 1968 major student unrest in Mexico City was brutally suppressed by the army; throughout the 197os rural revolts recurred in central Mexico, and they were also suppressed. Yet presidential successions were smooth; the state prevailed in its macroeconomic developmentalism; social mobilization and modernization progressed rapidly. The postrevolutionary class of labor and PRI bosses gradually lost control of the state to a new class of professionalized, well-educated tecnicos. A modern middle class with democratic aspirations also came into being, and the political party that spoke for it—the Partido de Acci6n Nacional (PAN)—demanded increasing access to the bureaucracy during the 197os. Authoritarian features predominated; yet the forces permitted to

" For the complete story on the ups and downs of labor-state relations, see Ruth B. Collier, The Contradictory Alliance (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International and Area Studies, 1992).

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grow in their interstices resulted in the progress toward liberal democracy witnessed after 1988.'8 Nationalism and the Politics of Economic Growth Between 1940 and the end of the 197os Mexico adhered to a relentless policy of income-substituting industrialization (ISI) under state guidance. Economic development became the first priority, not the social equality or socialism that had been the policy of Lazaro Cardenas. Gross national product tripled between 1940 and 1958. Annual growth rates hovered around 7 percent. Mexico avoided hyperinflation and sharp fluctuations of the exchange rate. Nevertheless, rural poverty did not decline. Even though the urban middle class grew, so did the number of urban poor as peasants streamed into the major cities in search of a better life. By 1980 discontent had reached proportions that could no longer be contained by the PREs practice of co-opting dissidents. Opposition parties on the left and the right grew rapidly.19 State control manifested itself in government domination of investment funds; the nationalization of foreign oil, mining, and public utility properties; and the hegemony of state-owned enterprises in the manufacturing and mining sectors. Foreigners could invest in Mexican enterprises but could not own controlling shares. The state owned all oil and petrochemical production. By 1981 it controlled 41 percent of all investment; its enterprises accounted for 12.7 percent of industrial production. The state bureaucracy, by way of its networks of individuals who shared views, protectors/mentors, and backgrounds (camarillas), ran the show with the cooperation of the chief firms in the private sector, but often over the opposition of labor. The major firms, concentrated in northern 18 Democratic and totalitarian features compared: 1930-88 After 1988 Role of ideology Considerable Slight Type of change Nonincremental Incremental Participation Broad mobilized Broad autonomous Ritualistic, noncompetitive More competitive Elections Political freedoms Most respected All respected Government control of economy Very extensive Moderate One strong Several Parties SOURCE: Adapted from Samuel Huntington, "The Modest Meaning of Democracy," in Robert A. Pastor, ed., Democracy in the Americas (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1989), p. 17. 19 Urban protests on the part of migrants from rural areas occurred in the squatter settlements on the margins of big cities. The movement lasted from 1969 to 1974; migrants organized themselves into neighborhood associations and made energetic demands on the bureaucracy for title to their shacks and better municipal services. Many of these demands were granted; the movement was effectively co-opted by the PRI and thus died down. See Carlos Velez-Ibanez, Rituals of Marginality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). 235

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Mexico, shared fully in the overall growth. Their owners and executives, though raised in the tradition of anti-imperialism and cherishing Mexican autonomy, learned to cooperate closely with foreign investors, purveyors of foreign technologies, the bureaucracy, and the parastatal enterprises. The economic bureaucracy responsible for guiding successful development underwent a major shift after 197o toward professionalization, and another after 1988 toward a more oligarchic status. President Luis Echeverria, in order to find personnel able and willing to advance his commitment to state planning and financing of further development, broke the previous control of entrenched officials of the Ministry of Finance. He created a corps of foreign-educated economists (known as tecnicos) who disdained career involvement with the PRI and abhorred the corporatist practices associated with it. By the time President de la Madrid took over in 1982, the tecnicos had assumed control over all economic policy by means of the camarilla system. But they deceived their creator by turning themselves into the artificers of capitalism and devotees of free markets even before Carlos Salinas de Gortari committed Mexico officially to that course in 1988. Miguel Centeno maintains that Salinas's staff now became tecnocratas.2° How do the two differ? The generation of tecnicos owed its success to its foreign university degrees, its detachment from politics, its origin in middle-class Mexico City families, and its command of specific professional skills. The tecnocrata generation, in contrast, came from families already part of the ruling elite, had experience in the technical branches of the PRI, and entered the civil service at high levels instead of having to work their way up; like their tecnico predecessors, the tecnocratas also held foreign graduate degrees, mostly in economics and management, and hailed from the Federal District. They reinforced economic thinking that stressed, unlike the Echeverria "shared development" program, the trickle-down benefits of free markets instead of radical redistribution. The tecn6cratas remained committed to a state strong enough to moderate the effects of free markets by appropriate subsidies to the poor. While capitalism benefited, ironically, labor suffered. Unions unwilling to be controlled by the PRI struck, only to be repressed. Docile unions were rewarded with modest wage increases. After Cardenas all presidents spent much more liberally on economic growth than on social services and entitlements; only Adolfo Lopez Mateos in 196o devoted increased attention to outlays for education and rural welfare. Free textbooks were made available in public schools; not unnaturally, they stressed the achievements of nation-building and sought to build a sense of national identity on the rhetoric of the Revolution. 20 Miguel A. Centeno, Democracy within Reason (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994).

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Nor did the agrarian sector benefit greatly. Advocates of economic development won their argument with social reformers by consistently downplaying the welfare of ejidatarios at the expense of flourishing agribusiness firms, leading during the 198os to a sharp decline of state and PRI legitimacy in some rural areas. Cardenas had distributed more than 18 million hectares of land to ejidos. He had also made available rural credit and various production subsidies. This policy was neglected by his successors, until Echeverria once more undertook land redistribution in the 197os in order to appease rural unrest. Even though agricultural productivity rose by 4.3 percent per year between 1940 and 1960, much of this growth was in the agribusiness sector. The favor shown large producers resulted in a drop in production by 7 percent after 1960. As the original leaders of the ejido movement were replaced by younger men, the PRI again managed to co-opt radical opposition until the 198os. Still, most things went well for the PRI until the 1970s, when government policy began to falter and to follow self-contradictory paths as the second (or "deepening") phase of import-substituting industrialization began. President Luis Echeverria sought to placate both labor and the private sector, triggering inflation, import surges, and exchange shortages. The corporatist formula began to crack, though labor entitlements were raised. Capital flight set in as the private sector suffered more than did state-owned enterprises. Mexico's foreign policy before 197o was almost exclusively concerned with economic issues. The nationalization of foreign oil firms in 1938 was of enormous symbolic significance for Mexican national identity: Mexicans demonstrated to themselves and to the world their determination to chart their own economic future. Moreover, they proved to themselves their ability to slay the imperialist (i.e., American) dragon. That done, policy after 1938 became quietly pro-American. The national oil and petrochemical giant PEMEX became the icon of state-led industrialization and worker power. That success was followed by a policy of reserving the "commanding heights" of the new industrial economy-to-be-created for Mexican firms, public and private. Foreign investment was not actively sought before 197o. Yet rigid economic nationalism soon gave way to a more pragmatic attitude. Despite its growing oil power, Mexico did not join OPEC, apparently in order to safeguard good relations with Washington.21 During the Echeverria sexenio (1970-76) a bevy of new legislation governing 21 It appears that Mexico was unwilling to risk losing the American nonreciprocal tariff preferences just granted. Moreover, most of Mexican oil production was being purchased by the United States at premium prices to stock the strategic oil reserve. See George W. Grayson, The Politics of Mexican Oil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980).

23 7

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foreign investments, the purchase of foreign technology, and technology transfer agreements was adopted. These laws made it easier to import upto-date technology even though the bureaucracy continued to license the purchases to make sure they went to priority sectors and did not endanger Mexican control. Still, the overwhelming majority of applications to purchase and register foreign technology was approved; conditions governing joint ventures and direct investments by foreign manufacturing firms and foreign banks were relaxed. Mexico, unlike many other developing countries, proved not to be afraid of multinational firms despite the anti-imperialist rhetoric. Nevertheless, Mexico became a leader of Third World challenges to the West. Shaken by the pro-democracy revolt of 1968, the succeeding government of Luis Echeverria was challenged to assert its nationalist credentials by overtly championing Third World causes. Moreover, it felt rebuffed by American "arrogance" over trade and narcotics issues. Mexican leaders adopted a left-wing foreign policy to make up for their loss of legitimacy at home: President Jose Lopez Portillo sided with Castro's Cuba and the Nicaraguan Sandinista government; Echeverria embraced—at least in words—the New International Economic Order program of the United Nations. At the same time, the leaders asserted their continued opposition to any bilateral or multilateral intervention, whether over human rights issues and democracy or over economic matters. All this was to change once more in the late 198os. The Successful National Myth During this period most Mexicans believed in these partly selfcontradictory propositions: though their national culture is mestizaje, its roots are Indian; if Mexico can defend itself against constant American intervention, it will remain a strong independent state; Mexico will become a modern industrial country; Mexico is a democracy. The "discovery" of the alleged remains of Cuauhtemoc set off a long frenzy of national celebration. Along with the priests Hidalgo and Morelos, the positivist anticlerical Juarez, the bourgeois liberals Madero and Carranza, and the agrarian populists Zapata and Villa, Cuauhtemoc is the first in the pantheon of national heroes. It does not matter that the beliefs and forces represented by these men were mutually inconsistent and the source of much bloodshed. Mexicans are intensely proud of their country and its modern history; since 1847 they have blamed many of their misfortunes on the allegedly ever-present American intervention. They take pride in resisting American arrogance and pretentiousness, in public rhetorical displays of opposing U.S. "intervention." American practices that are considered 238

Mexico

"intervention," in addition to the use of military force, include hostile media coverage, congressional hearings about Mexican affairs, objections to corruption and drug-dealing, and efforts to curb illegal immigration. Some intellectuals profess fear of American investment and of the inroads of American mass culture. Talking back to America is a source of enormous national esteem. Given their great strides in economic development since 1940, it is not surprising that Mexicans think they are on their way to becoming an industrial country. They now take satisfaction in their membership in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development—the club of the rich countries—and in the World Trade Organization. They increasingly associate Mexicanness with an ability to become modern. Mexico is a democracy? How can the authoritarian and often brutal mode of governance successfully practiced during this period be squared with the self-perception of being democratic? Survey research in the 196os and 197os has disclosed a number of findings that apply at the mass level; many of them clear up the puzzle.22 There was very little tolerance for minority views or political dissent. The masses accepted the quasi-monopoly of the PRI as quite legitimate. Caciquismo by PRI functionaries was accepted at the local level and the imperial presidency at the national level. The carefully nurtured myth that the president, like European royalty in feudal times, was accessible to all and will hear everyone's petition enjoyed general acceptance. Mass voters understood and accepted that voting is a symbolic act approving the PM, not a choice of leaders; they turned out in larger numbers than in most real democracies without having strong ideological commitments or great expectations that the new leaders would be any less corrupt than the old ones. Though the masses had been successfully socialized to embrace the symbols of national identity that their leaders invented for them in the 192os and 193os, they were also materially rewarded for voting and demonstrating their patriotic loyalty. People realized that there was no ready alternative to the PRI. Religion in general, and civil religion in particular, suggests why this could occur. Mexicans are able simultaneously to embrace the symbols of secular modernism, of indigenous tradition, and of two kinds of Catholicism, formal-Hispanic church doctrine for the upper strata (as represented by the PAN in electoral politics) and decentralized folk ritual for the common people. The PRI was a master in co-opting traditional symbols. Mexico's national holiday, the Fifth of May, originally was only a rural fiesta commemorating local, political events of 1857 or of 19to, not 22 All survey data used in this section are contained in Ann L. Craig and Wayne A. Cornelius, "Political Culture in Mexico," in Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, eds., The Civic Culture Revisited (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), chap. 9.

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necessarily the battle of Puebla; the date was made a national day of pride and rejoicing as late as 1933. The PRI did not attempt a formal, doctrinal reconciliation of religious and secular values and symbols. It wished to retain the rhetoric of pure secularism; hence, it never assimilated any religiously sanctioned symbols of political legitimation, though it tolerated their survival. There is no Mexican civil religion that successfully blends the two traditions, even though the Mexican educational system gradually relaxed the early emphasis on shaping the national psyche in a pure, secular, socialist cast. Catholicism retained its popularity despite the effort to supplant it. As state and church learned to tolerate each other, the sharp edges of incompatibility were dulled. What emerged in Mexico was a cohabitation of the secular and the sacred realms; the secular power learned to legitimate itself by using the method of symbol manipulation always in the armory of the sacred.23 Mexican folk Catholicism is compatible with disdain for the institutional church; it is selective and even cynical with respect to the church's theology and moral injunctions. Hence, accepting the vivid iconography of the Revolution and the invocation of the Aztec sacred past for the legitimation of the regime's purely secular aspirations offers a mythically ritualized experience quite familiar to Mexicans. The symbolic mixture aided in the rationalization of the nation-state. Catholic believers detested the system of secularizing public schools and succeeded in maintaining their own schools, subject to a minimum of state supervision regarding the use of texts. Still, each time the content of social science texts was changed, Catholics complained about the excess of leftist secular rationalism, because the textbook "propagates a common, government-determined vision of the nation's past and present, its cultural and sexual mores, its system of values, and its place in the world."24 History texts, while denouncing the alleged American penchant for intervention, are careful to blame the chaotic first fifty years of Mexico's sad history on Mexico's own faults; they imply that the work of nation-building remains to be completed and may yet fail! Spanish has been the only official language of Mexico since 1892. It has been used as the medium to socialize Indians into national life. Spanish alone was featured in education before 1980. As elsewhere, more education correlates with a higher degree of political knowledge, interest, and 23 This argument is made in detail and supported with Mexican survey research data in Kenneth M. Coleman and Charles L. Davis, "Civil and Conventional Religion in Secular Authoritarian Regimes: The Case of Mexico," Studies in Comparative International Development 13 (Summer 1978): 56-76. 24 Jorge G. Castarieda, 'The Mexican Mind," in Robert A. Pastor and Jorge G. Castaileda, Limits to Friendship (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 25.

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Mexico efficacy.25 Despite the insistence of the national myth that Mexican culture is mestizo culture, Spanish remains the undisputed idiom for expressing it. The Hispanic roots of Mexicanness continue to be stressed by criollos, by fervent upper-class Catholics, many of whom fear and despise Protestantism as un-Mexican. Hispanidad can also mean anti-Americanism. In short, not even the Revolution's indigenist mythology has been able to banish the same Revolution's commitment to Western-style modernity. But what happened to the Indian cultures so singled out for honor in the Revolution's ideology? By 196o the government claimed that a mere 3.7 percent of the population spoke only an Indian language, whereas another 7.6 percent was considered bilingual in Spanish and one Indian tongue. Indian languages were used in elementary school instruction only to teach Spanish. In effect, the purpose of rural education for Indians was to make them mestizos, no matter what ideological themes happened to be stressed at the moment. Take the term la raza and its commemoration, the dia de la raza, as an example of cultural ambiguity and uncertainty.26 It is always celebrated on October 12 to commemorate Columbus's initial landing. Before the Revolution it was used to celebrate hispanidad, the Catholic-European roots of the culture; la raza meant Hispanic civilization. By 193o, however, after thirty years of intellectual agitation in favor of mestizaje as to mexicana la raza came to mean "the American race" and Columbus became a victim, hurt by others' oppression of Indians, just as Cuauhtemoc became the spokesman of the Indians. Yet, with the arrival of antifascist refugees from Spain after 1936, the Spanish theme became legitimate once more, evolving into the idea of Panamerican unity against fascism during World War II. The significance of Columbus changed at each turn of the ideological screw. Before 193o it was common to include the Virgin of Guadalupe in the celebration; not so after 193o. After 1945, October 12 became the celebration of mestizoness, which it has remained. Columbus has lost his positive significance to become the original oppressor. Post-193o indigenismo originated as a deliberate device for making Indians into mestizos under the guise of celebrating their culture as Mexico's. By dint of successful state socialization, however, the Indian symbols became Mexico's just the same, aided by Manuel Gamio's creation of authentic Mexican anthropology and archaeology. The rediscovered past became the symbol of the present to celebrate the future to be 25 Several decades of this type of education must have played a role in enabling dissident members of the PRI's agrarian and labor sectors to secede from the official bodies and set up their own, and to riot, strike, and petition effectively for state recognition. The same is true of squatter and neighborhood associations in urban slums. 26 This story is taken from Miguel Rodriguez, "El 12 de octubre: Entre el IV y el V centenario," in Roberto Blancarte, ed., Cultura e identitad nacional (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1994), pp. 1 2 7-6 2 .

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ushered in. As Gamio put it, "It must be remembered that mestizaje suits Mexico, not only ethnically, but as a means to establish a culture more advanced than the less satisfactory one that today characterizes the majority of the population."27 In addition to the nobility of the Precolumbian past that was being reinvented, indigenismo in the 193os rediscovered mestizo folklore; the state, too, took pains to legitimate it by sponsoring charro and china poblana dancing and local songs. State radio and cinema became active agents of propaganda for mestizo culture. Somehow, by 198o, none of this made much sense any longer. Migrants and television introduced American mass culture; it shows no sign of leaving. The differences between rural folk culture and the budding of a modern urban way of life are still stark, but the city is clearly winning, if only because of heavy rural-urban migration. At the other extreme, the rescue of "true" Indian culture became a major cause of the Mexican left. The constitution now recognizes the legitimacy of a multilingual Mexico in the form of fifty-six official non-Spanish ethnic groups, lo mexicano being the fifty-seventh. Successful Rationalization? By 197o almost 73 percent of school-age children were enrolled in elementary schools; the government claimed that literacy had reached 76 percent, but only 2.1 percent of children over fourteen were enrolled in secondary schools and universities. Thirty-five percent of the population of 48 million lived in cities counting more than too,000 inhabitants; Mexico City became the world's largest metropolis. Agriculture employed only 39 percent of the workforce. There was almost universal access to radio, television, and cinema. Observers thought that in 1910, go percent of the population had little awareness of a Mexican nation; by the mid196os, 75 percent had such a consciousness. A powerful state had come into being, self-confident enough by 1938 to defy Britain and the United States over the nationalization of oil, to launch ambitious educational and development programs, and to crush rebellions with little effort. As the decades rolled on, the state showed itself equally adept at regulating foreign investments and stimulating the importation of desired technologies. The bureaucracy became progressively professional in the higher ranks, increasingly trained in specialized technical subjects, fully in charge of governing the country. Beginning in 197o, however, the administrative cohesion of the state began to crack. Departments and their heads disagreed over whether to 27 Quoted in Jorge Hernandez-Diaz, "National Identity and Indigenous Ethnicity in Mexico," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 21, nos. 1-2 (1994): 73. 24 2

Mexico follow an expansive or a deflationary policy. The Echeverria and Lopez Portillo administrations (197o-82) waffled between the two. Various ministries began to follow contradictory courses. No planning apparatus existed before 1976. Budgeting was haphazard. PEMEX had become a state within a state, subject to no central direction except that of the labor union that in fact controlled it. Import substitution faltered; growth was concentrated in the public sector. Efforts failed to coordinate the segments of the public sector so as to make them part of a single macroeconomic plan. The private sector complained bitterly about confusion in the government. No improvements in democracy or in equality were in evidence. The political elite recruited itself; incumbent officeholders chose their successors from a small pool of people educated overwhelmingly at the National University (UNAM) and raised in Mexico City, usually scions of political families who had been members of camarillas for decades. Each neophyte politician attached himself to a mentor, usually the head of a camarilla, who made himself responsible for the young man's advancement. The UNAM students who rebelled in 1968 objected to these oligarchic conditions. Hundreds were massacred by the army at that time. The legitimacy of the regime declined appreciably thereafter, as more cries for democracy and social reform were heard on the left and demands for democracy and more autonomy from the state on the right. Overall rationalization declined to 75 percent in 198o, from a high of 86 percent in 195o. It was to decline to 5o percent by 1997. Though the PRI excelled in adapting to slightly changed conditions, it had shown itself unable to learn major lessons after it consolidated the state—until Presidents de la Madrid and Salinas decided to abandon ISI, and President Zedillo made overtures to democracy. SINCE 1985: CHALLENGE TO RATIONALIZATION The real test of the ability to learn came in the mid-198os. Mexico had failed to achieve rationalization as long as it followed Path D; under the porous cap of the superficial rationalization of the Porfiriato, a magma of middle-class and peasant discontent bubbled up, triggered by the regime's policies. Once Mexico shifted to Path A, it looked as if a cohesive, modern nation-state would come into being. Integral nationalismas-rationalizer worked as long as no serious demand for democracy grew up among the beneficiaries of modernity. Integralist institutions could successfully shape and channel attitudes, ideas, and behavior. But, as the result of the regime's policies, a new generation of mobilized but unas243

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similated and discontented people now exists. Can they succeed in switching Mexico from the integral to the liberal track? Or will the two trains collide once more? Toward Free Market Democracy? The State Withdraws and Ends ISI In 1982 President Miguel de la Madrid initiated policies designed to reverse forty years of ISI. They had stressed national investment at the expense of foreign direct investment, state ownership of manufacturing plants at the expense of the private sector, subsidized collective agriculture over private production for a competitive market, and reliance on a growing domestic market over export-generated growth. Mexico refused to join GATT until 1986, because giving up tariff autonomy was seen as capitulating to U.S. capitalist hegemony and opening the country to economic intervention. Until 1982 these policies had paid off. Thereafter, declining oil prices, huge budget deficits, a crushing foreign debt due to debt-financed public-sector investment, massive private capital flight, and industrial stagnation signaled the end of ISI. Mexican administrators and politicians had failed to see the early signs of the danger during the 197os. The sudden reversal of ISI policies and their replacement with a belief in free markets, private enterprise in agriculture and industry, and export-dependent growth must be counted as a major case of collective learning. By 1990 more than nine hundred state enterprises, out of twelve hundred, had been sold to private owners.28 Only giant PEMEX remained immune from the privatization drive. The state learned to restrict its own scope. ISI had combined an anti-American economic nationalism with a commitment to economic self-reliance. The perception of enormous 28 Pedro Aspe (the minister of finance during these years), in Economic Transformation: The Mexican Way (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), p. 177. He also reports that the annual inflation rate varied between 52 percent and 159 percent during de la Madrid sexenio. Sidney Weintraub, Transforming the Mexican Economy (Washington, D.C.: National Planning Association, 1990), p. 7, reports that between 1982 and 1988, the state share of the economy declined to 18 percent from 27 percent in public-sector expenditures, to 4.8 percent from 8.1 percent in investment, and to 19 percent from 22.3 percent in GDP generation. The budget deficits during these years were due to subsidies to the public enterprises that failed to break even. The minimum wage shrank by 5o percent. The service on the foreign debt declined from a high of 12 percent of GDP in 1982 to 5 percent by 1988, thanks to repeated rescheduling exercises. In 1982 the combined foreign debt reached $84 billion, or 84 percent of GDP (ibid., p. 129). Reduction of the debt was brought about by various innovative ways of new external financing worked out by IMF and the Paris Club of creditor governments. When, in 1995, the Mexican economy crashed once more, it was saved again by U.S. credits.

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economic asymmetries regarding the giant to the north reinforced this sentiment. De la Madrid and his successor, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, over very considerable opposition from a left unwilling to jettison the old nationalism, overcame this perception by joining GATT, concluding the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada, and opening up the Mexican economy to direct foreign investment. Opting for free trade meant that Mexico reduced its tariffs steeply and suddenly. Salinas took the initiative in the creation of NAFTA; he wanted to open Mexico to American investors and the United States to Mexican exports in order to complete Mexico's conversion to capitalism. Mexico prevailed in Washington, thus reversing the stereotype of eternal gringo intervention. Under the new dispensation, restrictions designed to provide residual protection for domestic capital were removed, but the bulk of the foreign funds now flowing in went into speculative ventures, not new manufacturing plants, except in the factories along the United States—Mexican border. Salinas wanted the Mexican economy to merge with the North American and reap the presumed benefits of globalization.29 Mexico's integration into the global economy was confirmed by the financial crisis suffered in 1994-95. The sudden collapse of the currency due to irresponsible bank lending, and the attendant disruption of foreign investment, was stemmed only as a result of a massive multilateral rescue package put together by the IMF. Conditionality took its toll, however, as the fund demanded the usual austerity measures to reduce government spending. The currency and investment activity recovered rapidly; annual growth in 1997 reached 7.3 percent, and inflation fell to 16 percent. But there were riots and widespread protests on the part of the poor most heavily affected by the spending cuts and the 28 percent decline in wages. President Ernesto Zedillo maintained his commitment to the IMF just the same. These developments directly challenged the old integralist Mexican nationalism because they all heralded a much reduced role of the state in the economy. They are equally incompatible with the continued practice of state-dominated corporatism. As early as the financial crisis of 1982, when President Lopez Portillo nationalized all private commercial banks to stem the massive capital flight, economic survival inadvertently triggered an increase in the power of the private sector. As the privatization 29 The increase in Mexico's foreign trade is heavily skewed toward the southwestern United States. In 1998, 73 percent of California's exports to Mexico consisted of materials bound for mostly foreign-owned maquiladoras. Almost the entire output of the maquiladoras was destined for the American market. Mexico's labor laws are systematically ignored along the border, and those arguing for better enforcement are persecuted by the police.

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campaign proceeded, the state had less and less to offer an already suspicious private sector, whose distrust was accentuated by the disputed election of 1988 and the subsequent rise of the PAN. A major blow to state corporatism came in the efforts of de la Madrid to counter hyperinflation in 1987. This called for the Stabilization Pact, freely negotiated by the state, private business, labor, and the agrarian sectors. Private business emerged as the chief partner of the state, not its victim.3° In general, the PRI's control over Mexico's society has fallen on hard times with the end of ISI. Salinas, in an effort to co-opt the labor sector to the free market policies, encouraged grass-roots participation in local decision making but showed no interest in allowing labor to influence central policy making. This ambivalence probably increased the defection of unions from the PRI and encouraged the growth of new unions outside the official labor sector." The agrarian sector is also in disarray. Some local peasant organizations have adjusted well to the new policies; others oppose them and seek to sabotage their implementation. The government's decision to eliminate legal barriers that had prevented the tillers of ejido lands from selling their properties exacerbated the split because not all peasants wish to become independent unsubsidized owners. The PRI's popular sector disintegrated over the conflicts among its constituent groups. The private entrepreneurial groups, never part of the official corporatist structure, now in fact are the state's partners. At least this is true for the business associations that adhere to the state's technocratic liberalism, though not for more radical free marketeers, such as the bourgeoisie of San Luis Potosi, or for firms that continue to favor state protection. Finally, corporatism is effectively challenged by a plethora of oppositionist new social movements, such as indigenous groups, squatters' associations, and some local teachers' unions. In the past the PRI either 3° The pact called for the reduction of the size of the bureaucracy, tight money, no more indexation of wages, selective and negotiated price controls, trade liberalization, and targets for gradually diminishing inflation. The agrarian sector was barely consulted at all. Labor was divided; only the unions in industries confident of surviving the end of ISI favored the pact. 31 Salinas deliberately bypassed the PRI trade union structure in his program of subsidizing the poorest victims of the free market policies (PRONASOL). He sought to co-opt dissent by relying on the state bureaucracy, not the PRI, because of his belief that the PRI's charrismo made the execution of the free market programs impossible. Only half of Mexican workers say they take pride in their work, and no more than 25 percent rank individual achievement as important. Even though a high proportion of workers favors labor participation in management, their support for state ownership was very low by 1990. However, only 47 percent favored continued privatization. These data, and all other survey research materials reported here, come from R. Inglehart, N. Nevitte, and M. Basafiez, Convergence in North America, unpublished manuscript kindly made available to me by the authors. The same material was published as Convergencia en Norteamer ica (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1994).

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Mexico co-opted or repressed such dissidents; in the present it no longer can, because the old legitimation by means of integral nationalism rings hollow to ever larger numbers of people.32 Income redistribution toward the poorer segments was reversed. There is less equality, measured by shares of income earned by various classes, than in 1984, after the attempted popularist reforms of Lopez Portillo. Privatization, the halting of inflation, and balancing the budget resulted in a halving of the income of Mexican workers as compared with their earnings in 1980. Rural poverty, already great, increased as well, though perhaps it was made more bearable by the Salinas Solidarity Program.33 On January 1, 1994, the Chiapas peasant rebellion erupted. On May 1, 1995, one hundred thousand workers demonstrated on the ZOcalo against the government's policies, and the PRI's official labor sector boycotted the normal Labor Day festivities. Derationalization: Chaos, Adaptation, Learning The disputed election of 1988 ushered in a period of political turmoil not seen since the 192os, despite PRI efforts to open up the political system. New political parties were allowed representation in the national and state legislatures. Electoral fraud perpetuating PRI dominance was progressively curbed; the PRI lost control of the national legislature in 1997 and also lost elections in several states to the PAN and PRD. In 1994 all presidential candidates pledged to introduce "civility" into their campaigns, and the PRI promised not to steal elections. The PRI began to allow competition for party nomination to electoral office.34 The government encouraged peaceful opposition to its policies while repressing violent protest. Participation in elections rose dramatically in the 199os. These adaptations did not succeed in shoring up the regime's legitimacy any more than did the radical turn toward a free market economy. On the contrary, these linked events contributed to the onset of derationalization. In 1982 48 percent of Mexicans still expressed satisfaction 32 For detailed analysis, see the essays by James G. Samstad and Ruth B. Collier, Merilee S. Grindle, and Matilde Luna in Riordan Roett, ed., The Challenge of Institutional Reform in Mexico (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995); also Jonathan Fox and Gustavo Gondillo, Joe Foweraker, Sylvia Maxfield, Kevin Middlebrook, and Lorenzo Meyer in Wayne A. Cornelius, Judith Gentleman, and Peter H. Smith, eds., Mexico's Alternative Political Futures (San Diego: University of California, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1989). " Weintraub, Transforming the Mexican Economy, pp. 14-17. In 198o capital took 47.7 percent of GDP and labor 36 percent; in 1986 capital took 49.5 percent and labor 28 percent. In 1990, 40 percent of the population of Baja California earned less than the salary of two minimum wage earners; in Chiapas the number was 8o percent. 34 In 1996 President Zedillo created the autonomous Federal Electoral Institute to eliminate electoral fraud. Party representatives on the Institute's board, however, continue the practice of mutual villification and perpetuate the factionalism autonomy was supposed to banish. Losing candidates continue the habit of blaming their losses on electoral chicanery.

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with Mexico's national achievements; in 1994 the number had shrunk to 31 percent." A serious split developed in the PRI as a result of these cross-pressures: the liberal tecnico wing, led by Carlos Salinas, wanted free market reforms without dramatic democratization; other leaders and bureaucrats led by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas wanted democratization without the free market; and a third group held out against both reforms. A realignment of core political coalitions resulted. The most successful coalition was made up of the neoliberal PRI members, the PAN, and the exportoriented private business sector. Consequently, this coalition downplayed the erstwhile labor- and peasant-based populist legitimation of the regime and instead sought support from the professional and business groups not part of the corporatist design. The second coalition—opposing the now dominant one—was made up of labor and agrarian groups against neoliberal economic policies led by the PRD and of business people who continued to rely on government subsidies. It included unhappy PRI members as well as groups situated on their left, not all of whom were committed to peaceful change, though the majority put their faith in perfecting democratic practices. The third group, almost all the traditional labor and agrarian bosses identified with charrismo, simply advocated the continuation of the undemocratic corporatist status quo.36 There are limits to the cautious democratization allowed by the PRI, limits that make the relegitimization of the regime problematic. The PRI continues to dominate television and radio. It seeks to manipulate survey research to suit its electoral needs. And, most seriously, it neither explained nor resolved the dramatic political assassinations of the iggos, which are believed by many to be due to intra-PRI conflicts; nor despite efforts did it succeed in curbing burgeoning corruption. Some observers consider the punishment of corrupt high officials "too confrontational" for Mexicans. The state suppressed dissident unions that sided with the Chiapas Zapatistas. PRI-dominated labor boards thwarted the election victories of dissident unions in a large maquiladora; PRI unions conspired with business to stifle complaints in NAFTA panels of serious violations of labor rights along the border. 35 Enrique Alduncin Abitia, Los valores de los mexicanos, vol. 2 (Mexico City: Banamex, 1991), pp. 62-63. Between 1985 and 1987 there were 1,444 mass mobilizations protesting electoral fraud by the PRI (Albert Aziz Nassif, in Cornelius et al., Mexico's Alternative Political Futures, p. 94). The story of the electoral reforms is told by Daniel C. Levy and Kathleen Bruhn, in Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Politics in Developing Countries (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 171-218; and Jorge Alcocer V., in Roett, Challenge of Institutional Reform, pp. 57-76. 36 See Ruth B. Collier, 'Transformation of Labor-Based One-Partyism at the End of the Twentieth Century: The Case of Mexico," in J. F. Holifield and C. Jillson, eds., Pathways to Democracy (New York: Routledge, 200o), pp. 93-115.

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More significant for national cohesion, a new movement for the rights of indigenous peoples has taken hold, of which the Zapatista revolt in Chiapas is only the most dramatic instance. Rural poverty continues unabated; 24 million peasants, or 25 percent of the population, live in extreme poverty. The free market reformers are uninterested in rural poverty, preferring that peasants move to the cities to reduce rural underemployment. They also want to privatize all communal lands. Left-wing intellectuals, in opposing these values, are becoming strong advocates of special measures to protect Indian culture and the communal Indian mode of agricultural production. Along with deploring the Indians' alleged lack of self-esteem, they support the demands of Indian leaders for much more effective ways of representing Indian interests by means of creating autonomous institutions. A new National Indigenous Council (CNI) demands the restoration of the ejido. In short, a movement for recognizing Mexico as a multicultural society has arisen, a movement that demands more than the symbolic ritual offered in the past. Some members of Congress, spurred by the Chiapas revolt, worked out a scheme for offering autonomy to Indian communities which was accepted by the Mayans, but it was turned down by Zedillo as derogating excessively from the sovereignty of the state.37 The Zapatista revolt, though it became a national indigenist movement to force the state to accept real multiculturalism, originated as a local protest against the shrinking of communal lands, erosion due to excessive logging, and immigration of other ethnic groups. In 1994 the rebels occupied several towns and organized "parallel governments" challenging the right of the PRI-dominated state government to rule. By 1998 the government had counterattacked and seized the towns it had lost earlier. Desultory negotiations for a settlement of grievances had led nowhere, even though the Zapatista cause had become a national one and the gov" After the failure of the first effort to work out an autonomy statute for indigenous peoples, Zedillo proposed a new one in March 1998. It holds autonomy acceptable as long as it does "not infringe upon national sovereignty and national unity." Indian communities can choose their leaders by traditional means, not elections, as long as they "do not contravene the Constitution and respect individual and human rights." Most important, indigenous control over natural resources "has to respect third-party property rights." Indigenous groups may own and operate their own radio and television stations. The proposed statute is incompatible with Zapatista demands, and other Indian groups are organizing "autonomy districts" of their own. The introduction of primary elections for president in the PRI was marred by President Zedillo's use of the traditional dedazo in favor of the eventual winner, Labastida. Yet this did not prevent several other candidates from running, a distinct innovation, though Zedillo's choice meant that they received no media aid and that the PRI machine was mobilized to support the winner alone and to make life difficult for the challengers. Only 14 percent of the electorate bothered to vote in the PRI's first primary election.

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ernment had shown some goodwill by releasing prisoners and punishing officials who had committed atrocities against the rebels. In 1999 the supporters of the Zapatista movement conducted their own national "plebiscite" in which, they claim, three million people voted (95 percent) in favor of more autonomy for Indians. Since the breakdown of the old corporatism, violent domestic conflict has increased outside Chiapas as well. The rationalization score fell to 5o percent in 1997. The terrorism of the new Popular Revolutionary Army in several southern states was aimed at combating free market reforms in rural areas. These and other violent protest movements, rural and urban, suggest that the traditional Mexican deference to authority is weakening and that lack of trust in the state persists. More than a dozen demonstrations, protesting a wide variety of conditions, took place every day in Mexico City in 1996. In 1990 only 18 percent of Mexicans had high confidence in government action, whereas 48 percent put their trust in activities by nongovernmental groups. While some see a pro-democracy symbol in President Ernesto Zedillo's declared intention to prosecute members of the Salinas family, others doubt that democratic legitimacy is growing, in the face of ever more evidence of drug-related corruption at the highest levels of the state. The judiciary remains unreformed. The police continue to violate human rights routinely.38 Pervasive corruption is one reason Mexico's administrative cohesion and integrity are declining. Another is the diminished commitment to service of the bureaucracy, triggered by the new coalitions and changing policies of the last three presidents. Many members of the bureaucracy are not in accord with the drive toward minimizing the role of the state in the economy. These disagreements increase the disruptive role of the camarillas and undermine administrative cohesion. Some see the growing demand for administrative decentralization as a force for democratic accountability, but others fear it as weakening the state. Even though new interests and ideas challenged the deceptively well rationalized PRI state, the old institutions still proved able to influence the behavior of the peasantry. Some managed to learn from the chaos, others adapted. State corporatism had always been a method of top-down manipulation most successfully practiced in poor rural areas; pluralist practices had always characterized the regime's relations with privileged " The Organization of American States' 1998 examination of human rights protection condemned Mexican practices with respect to the administration of criminal justice, the lack of responsiveness in meeting complaints of human rights violations, and the continuing repression of dissidents. The OAS also noted that torture continues to be practiced and that those who mistreat prisoners go unpunished. Finally, Mexico was found deficient in the protection of women's and indigenous people's rights. Organization of American States, Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico (Washington, D.C.: OAS, 1998), pp. 158-67. 250

Mexico urban groups. In 1989 the government abolished the parastatal Mexican Coffee Institute, which had for decades processed and marketed the coffee produced by peasants and thus shielded both private cultivators and ejidatarios from the vicissitudes of the market. The ability to learn is illustrated by the response of the peasantry. In Oaxaca and Chiapas, autonomous cultivator organizations not affiliated with the PRI managed to seize the old corporatist structures and refashion them into participatory institutions for collectively managing coffee processing and marketing. In Guerrero and Puebla, however, they failed because they were outmaneuvered by the adaptable political notables allied with the governor, who instituted "crony capitalism," or because the polarized situation allowed for neither learning nor adaptation.39 The Disintegration of the National Myth The integralist national myth has splintered. Before we seek to identify the ideological markers on the splinters, we must trace their ties to the contradictory current beliefs of Mexicans: are they consistent with integralism, liberalism, or some version of syncretism? Liberalism is amply represented. Catholic workers widely support the secularist PRI because they see no contradiction between their religious beliefs, their secular interests, and the interests of the largely passive church. Religiosity appears to be declining, too. But the belief of 63 percent of respondents that the Virgin of Guadalupe is the mother of Mexicans is surely evidence that traditional syncretism also survives. Those very proud of being Mexican (56 percent of respondents in 199o) are also the most religious. Lack of willingness to participate in conventional political activities is a traditional trait. So are the beliefs of large majorities that the family matters above all else, that obedience is the most important trait to be taught to children, that authority ought to be respected but that doing illegal things is quite acceptable (55 percent of respondents in 199o). Nonliberal beliefs may be surviving because the upward mobility of mestizos has slowed down considerably since the u I owe this material to Richard Snyder's unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, "After the State Withdraws: Neoliberalism and the Politics of Reregulation in Mexico" (University of California, Berkeley, 1997). Also see Snyder, "After the State Withdraws," in Wayne Cornelius, ed., Subnational Politics and Democratization in Postrevolutionary Mexico (La Jolla, Calif.: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UCSD, 1998). Jonathan Fox shows how the Solidarity rural development programs instituted by reformist bureaucrats under Salinas, depending on place and circumstances, can result in the maintenance of the corporatist status quo, the rise of genuinely autonomous participatory local bodies, or a semiclientilism under which local notables co-opt the new institutions. Some learning has taken place. "The Difficult Transition from Clientilism to Citizenship," World Politics ( January 1994): 151-84.

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197os, while resentments against criollo prestige and status are increasing. And what is one to make of the fact that in 1982, 28 percent considered Benito Juarez and 22 percent Miguel Hidalgo the "most admired political personages," one a doctrinaire liberal modernizer and the other a confused premodernist? Poor Cuauhtemoc was most admired by a mere 4 percent, and Emiliano Zapata by 5 percent.4° In the face of opposition from groups clamoring for more democracy and groups insisting on maintaining the integralist aspects of the Mexican national institutions, the PRI took a long time to examine its inherited ideological emphasis while actually beginning to remake Mexico in ways inconsistent with it. Carlos Salinas was the first leader to question anti-imperialism and anti-American xenophobia, the superiority of state enterprises, the strong interventionist state, and "dependence on the emotionally charged concept of 'Mexican identity' as an inexhaustible source of political power."41 Actually, says Roger Bartra, the free market reforms, the advent of NAFTA, and the influence of American mass culture have undermined the revolutionary legitimation of Mexico's national myth: Not only is nationalism ceasing to be a medium of effective domination; it has reached such a high level of internal disharmony that its very survival as the dominant class culture has become problematic. [Integral, revolutionary] nationalism is losing its ability to legitimize the hegemony of the PRI and maintain the unity of the dominant class. Officially nationalism . .. is losing both its credibility among the population and its coherence as the ideology and culture of the governing elite. The reconciliation attempted by Carlos Salinas between the state and a divided Catholic Church illustrates the continuing tension between the old integralism and a cautious liberalism. The church is divided between those who seek an institutional compromise with the state, accepting, with reservations, the 1992 reform of the anticlerical provisions of the 1917 constitution, and a "prophetic church" animated by liberation theology, favoring massive social reform opposed to free marketing, such " Data on Catholic Workers come from Franz von Sauer, "Measuring Legitimacy in Mexico," Mexican Studies 8 (Summer 1992): 259-8o; data on the Virgin of Guadalupe come from Alberto Hernandez M. and Luis Narro R., eds., Como somos los mexicanos (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Educativos, 1982), p. 141. The item on "most admired personages" is in ibid., p. to6. All other survey data come from Inglehart et al., Convergence in North America. 41 Roger Bartra, "Changes in Political Culture: The Crisis of Nationalism," in Cornelius et al., Mexico's Alternative Political Futures, p. 63. The subsequent quotation is from ibid., p. 78. See Fuentes, New Time for Mexico, pp. 140-46, 156-58, for a passionate invocation of the multicultural aspect of the revolutionary myth, lamenting only the absence of democracy. It reads as if Jose Vasconcelos were alive and well. Business circles highly dependent on trade with the United States urge Mexico to adopt the American dollar as the national currency. Others sharply oppose the switch as a betrayal of Mexico's national identity. 252

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as Chiapas bishop Samuel Ruiz, who backs the Zapatista revolt.42 Both face a rural population whose religiosity is indifferent to the institutional church and a rapidly growing evangelical Protestant movement. All continue to be sharply opposed by political parties and citizens' groups unwilling to make any concessions to religion. These groups fear an overly cozy future relationship between the now reconciled leaders of church and state. Unresolved tensions are equally strong in the area of public education. Unless ambiguities in values and beliefs to be taught are removed, Mexico is unlikely to acquire anything resembling a civil religion. Before the Salinas sexenio primary education—the predominant mode of socializing Mexicans into modernity and the national community—stressed the revolutionary myth in its history texts and identified Mexico strongly with Third World efforts to combat "imperialism." It also failed dramatically to achieve its educational objectives. In the early 199os it was discovered that only 16 percent of graduating sixth graders met the achievement criteria for that grade. Mexicans realized that the literacy scores and other educational data released by the national census were grossly inflated because of the domination of primary education by a militant teachers' union concerned less with teaching than with enhancing its entitlements and political power. Salinas broke the power of the union, instituted teacher evaluation by standardized examinations, insisted on an educational plan to create the job skills needed in a competitive market, and sought to decentralize educational administration to the states. Implementation of the plan lagged as administrative incoherence between levels of government increased. Salinas ordered history texts to be revised to eliminate the Third World bias, recognize the achievements of the Porfiriato in modernizing Mexico, and downplay the 1910 revolution. Zedillo countermanded the instructions. Continuing bitter disagreement on whose "history" is to be taught as Mexico's means that textbooks fail to cover events that occurred after 1964. The old integralist national myth is in tatters, but no new myth has taken hold. Espousal of a weakened state and a free market economy implies the acceptance of economic liberalism but not the politics of liberal nationalism. It is not only the PRI leadership that remains ambivalent on " The 1992 reforms reaffirmed the separation of church and state, established the right to free religious association (subject to registration of associations by the Ministry of the Interior), allowed the functioning of parochial schools with the understanding that all reference to religion would continue to be excluded from public school instruction. The Catholic Church is permitted to own only such property as is needed for its functions. Although the church can speak out on social and economic issues, the clergy is not allowed to participate in politics. The Mexican Bishops Conference accepted these terms while protesting the remaining restrictions. Adherents of liberation theology denounced the compromise, as did committed secularists.

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the issue of pluralistic democracy. The PAN too has trouble making up its mind; it endorses the liberalism of the free market and of honest elections and has allied with the PRI in opposing the PRD in some races. But it continues to urge a set of nationalist values that look like a Mexican version of reformist syncretism with its emphasis on Catholicism and the family. The champions of democracy, however, are not uniformly devoted to liberal nationalism either. Some harbor integralist (Marxist) beliefs, others syncretist ideologies of Indian power. They favor democracy insofar as they see in honest elections a way of gaining power and of undermining the remains of PRI corporatist control. Democracy can be a means to combat free market institutions and to combat NAFTA and U.S. influence. The Indian groups seek to wrest control over rural welfare programs from the PRI and from local notables and—as in Chiapas—to stop the privatization of land. Some of these champions of democracy also wish to relegitimate mestizo values as quintessentially Mexican, as opposed to the nefarious cultural currents from the North. The mixture bodes ill for the eventual victory of liberal nationalism.'" As long as ISI was the economic doctrine and integral nationalism the dominant myth, there was consensus on a foreign policy of isolationism punctuated by the need of the government to be seen as defending the honor and dignity of the nation—mostly against its northern neighbor. Once the economic disaster of the debt crisis struck, however, Mexico changed its foreign course as radically as its domestic policies. Little was now heard of American hegemonism. Mexico accepted the very intrusive supervision of the International Monetary Fund with respect to the deflationary policies imposed as a condition for debt rescheduling and relief. The government no longer complained of outside intervention. After rejecting demands for foreign monitors for the election of 1988, the government yielded in 1991 and 1994. Mexico asked to join the West: it obtained membership in the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But Mexico also aligned the price of its oil with OPEC's and enacted production cutbacks to drive up the price. By the mid-198os the rigor of isolationism also yielded to active participation in peacemaking in Central America. At first Mexico sided with the 43 Sociologist Carlos Monsivais argues that what passed for national identity in Mexico is rapidly being diluted by North American cultural influences to the extent that he considers Mexico to be in a postnational situation. Halloween is taking the place of the Dia de los Muertes and American television characters show up in local passion plays. Some intellectuals have replaced the sacred revolutionary cliches with talk of management and productivity (personal communication).

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Marxist government of Nicaragua and the rebels in El Salvador, possibly in order to please the domestic left. Mexico joined Venezuela in selling oil at concessional prices to Central America. It was an active participant in the Contadora process of negotiating agreements designed to end the two civil wars, in the face of active U.S. opposition. Insofar as the nationalism expressed by Mexicans was indistinguishable from anti-Americanism, the conclusion of the NAFTA agreement clearly made such attitudes obsolete. So did Mexico's fitful cooperation with the intrusive demands of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The United States evolved from being the enemy to being a role model for the kind of country most Mexicans wanted to inhabit. By 1990 6o percent favored closer economic ties with the United States, 25 percent expressed willingness to abolish the border, and many more wanted closer cooperation with the United States to combat environmental degradation, as well as to improve health and living standards.44 There is no doubt that at the debut of the twenty-first century Mexicans see their country as deeply troubled. But there are also some indications that their faith in their nation is increasing and with it the fate of liberal nationalism. In 1988, 82.5 percent thought Mexican democracy was bankrupt, 88 percent considered all politicians corrupt, only 1 o percent expressed trust in the PRI, and 85 percent considered electoral fraud to be present everywhere; only 6o percent believed President de la Madrid's assurance that the 1988 election would be clean.45 Only the family, the church, and schools enjoyed the confidence of more than 6o percent of the public. Yet surveys in the 199os showed increasing confidence in the government and especially in the opposition to the PRI as the PAN and the PRD began to win important local elections and capture the Congress. The internationally monitored and honest election of 1994 seems to have been an important turning point in possibly reversing political alienation. One survey even found that urban Mexicans and New Yorkers do not differ significantly in their strong endorsement of minority rights and respect for dissent. The PRD's Cuauhtemoc Cardenas was elected mayor of Mexico City in 1998, in a crushing defeat of the PRI candidate. His failure to reduce crime and limit corruption has disappointed his increasingly middle-class supporters. The PRD is more and more split between a center that favors NAFTA and free markets and the statist left. The desire to win the presidential election of 2000 will certainly strengthen the move to the center and the chances of liberal nationalism. So will the Data are from Inglehart et al., Convergence in North America. These data come from von Sauer, "Measuring Legitimacy." The data following come from Inglehart et al., Convergence in North America. 44

45

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emergence of an intelligentsia no longer able to depend on PRI patronage for its living, and the growing influence of business and the church in public affairs. Other evidence of alienation from the state abounds. The governance of Mexico City remains chaotic. Squatter towns proliferate; squatters prefer protection by criminals rather than the police. They distrust municipal authorities despite the fact that the PRD rules the city. They insist on "legalizing" their claims in the face of efforts by the authorities to move them, while creating their own rules and government. UNAM was shut down by a strike for the entire year in 1999 as students protested the introduction of tuition. Young people continue to consider the UNAM degree as the ticket to upward mobility even though employers increasingly reject it because of the university's lack of educational standards and quality control. It is doubtful that the PRI intended more than just to restore its own legitimacy; there is no evidence that the party willingly embraced democracy in 1994. But the gradual democratization of institutions may be the unintended consequence of the PRI's instrumental behavior. Who Has Learned What? Political change rarely results from the human activity we label learning: the deliberate reconsideration of established causal assumptions about society and economy and their replacement with new ones. Much more often change is the result of one group of leaders espousing a particular ideology replacing another. Another frequently used mode of change is adaptation: the choice of new means to attain an end that is not being questioned. Successive adaptations, like a series of quantitative changes, can bring about the result of learning, a major qualitative change, even if no deliberate reconsideration of causal patterns occurs. In Mexico ideology was the sole trigger of change until the institutionalization of the Revolution, around 193o. Neither learning nor adaptation occurred during the Porfiriato or the first decades of the Revolution. During the 1930s, however, two enormously important lessons were learned: Mexican elites came to understand how to institutionalize the process of modernization and how to tame the military. The corporatist method of integrating the country's squabbling forces and thus pushing them toward the policies desired by the rulers was a brilliant innovation, derived from the insight that ideology and dedication are necessary but insufficient to bring about permanent change. The formula worked for four decades, demonstrating that integral nationalism is able to rationalize developing countries that follow the path of Type A by using a blend of racist and Marxist ideas. 256

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Presidents Obregon, Calles, and Cardenas (all revolutionary "generals") also learned, as a result of their antimilitarism and fear of continued military violence, to redefine the role of the army in Mexican politics.46 Determined to end the fighting among revolutionary caudillos, they inserted the army into the corporatist structure by denying it any special powers or status, after getting rid of the amateur warriors who had fought the revolutionary battles and replacing them with newly trained professionals loyal to Mexico's integralist institutions. Between 1940 and the debt crisis of the 198os an enormous amount of adaptation occurred, mostly resulting in incrementally conservative changes away from the revolutionary model. The net result of the adaptive changes was to alter core national policies without altering the original national myth or intending to democratize the polity. True steps toward learning reentered the picture only after 1982. The de la Madrid administration was the first to be run entirely by tecnicos, neoclassical economists often trained in the United States and determined to break with ISI. These bureaucrats constituted an epistemic community. Had they come to dominate the PRI and the entire government, they would have diffused a consensual body of neoclassical economic knowledge. No such consensus arose, however, because their conquest of state and party was never complete. Hence, learning did not occur if we think of it as a comprehensive social process characterizing the entire government. Nor, it must be repeated, was liberalization intended by this epistemic community to democratize Mexican politics. Yet even partial learning led to significant innovative steps. Attempted reform of the educational system was one. Administrative decentralization was another. So was the increase in programs for rural welfare and development and the stimulus to the private ownership of land. Mexico's opening to multilateral governance, via NAFTA, OECD, WTO, and the IMF, was a major adaptation because it involved the acceptance of outside advice, monitoring, and compulsory settlement of some international disputes. Salinas considered these previously unpalatable steps necessary to make his domestic reforms succeed and to gain some protection from the unilateral pressures emanating from Washington. All these enmeshments derived from the commitments of the very epistemicbureaucratic community that was responsible for the free market reforms in the first place. In addition, they now give its members a multilateral stage and the opportunity to form policy networks with their opposite, foreign numbers. " The story is told in Alain Rouquie, The Military and the State in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) , pp. 201-7. Roderic A. Camp, Generals in the Palacio (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 25 7

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Other lessons, too, may be in the offing. If elections continue to enjoy increasing legitimacy, most Mexicans will learn that conflict settlement by peaceful means—involving compromise, not outright victory—is possible. Commitment to peaceful change will then take the place of alienation, resignation, indifference, and rebellion. The victory of liberal nationalism is not foreclosed. In the meantime, the old exclusive and defensive national myth and its penchant toward integralism is still at loggerheads with these new trends. One commentator sees the situation along the Rio Grande and the California border as a forerunner of a new nationalism of the future: The border is one of the meeting points of Mexican nationalism, education, and fear of intervention with the drift toward economic integration. So far the former are winning, the latter held at bay, but just barely. Indeed the strange, disturbing but fascinating combination of forces which the border possesses may well be a harbinger of the future for Mexico. It could represent an eclectic, middle-of-the-road solution to the nationalism-integration paradox: an acceptable ... response to one of Mexico's most daunting challenges" 47 Castarieda, "Mexican Mind," p. 313. The same argument is made more fully and is illustrated by Nestor Garcia Canclini, Consumidores y ciudadanos (Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo, 1995). Possibly the creation of dual Mexican-U.S. nationality for immigrants to the United States will bring about similar changes of attitude. Centeno, Democracy within Reason, pp. 196-99, argues that the post-1982 policies represent a mere change of means for realizing the original national aims of overcoming dependency. He also argues, contrary to my stance, that there was no pervasive neoliberal consensus among the tecnicos and tecnocratas (ibid., pp. 211-12).

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CHAPTER SIX

China

WHY CHINA WAS NOT A NATION-STATE BEFORE 1950 China's stumble toward nation-statehood resembles the path taken by Britain, France, Japan, and all the other countries in which the state was already established before the nation-building process began. It also resembles these cases in that not all nation-building elites rejected the culture of the elite being challenged. Still, China's case differs enough from this model to warrant our qualifying the "Type A" label by calling it "A-minus." Why? As in Japan, but unlike most other Type A experiences, the single most important trigger of the nation-building process was a foreign threat. The perception of being victims of Western and Japanese imperialism swamped all other demands and claims for a new dispensation. Moreover, this perceived mission for the new nation proved incompatible with the liberalism that characterizes the nationalist ideologies of most Type A countries. The illiberal flavor of the Japanese exemplar proved far more persuasive to the first generation of nationalists than the liberal Western values of the other imperialists. The nationalist elite was heterogeneous in belief and in composition. It was unable to oppose a single nationalist ideology to the waning legitimacy of the Manchu dynasty's Confucianism. The challengers, especially after 1919, wanted to destroy most of the traditional elite culture, only This chapter depends crucially on the outstanding research assistance and critical comments of Richard Doner and Wesley Young. Elizabeth Perry and Lowell Dittmer read the manuscript and saved me from many mistakes. My old friend Allen S. Whiting gave me the self-assurance to persist. 259

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to disagree on what to replace it with. They did postulate, however, the existence of a Chinese cultural essence (guocui) as given by history. The recognized longevity of the state was a core element in this early nationalist sentiment. Identification with that state united the competing ideologists.' In normal Type A cases of nation-building, industrialization and urbanization went hand in hand with becoming a nationalist; the challenges to the traditional society were part of an industrial process of modernization. Not so in China. Modernization was seen as a necessity to halt the perceived status deprivation inflicted by the foreign imperialist, who prevailed, the Chinese believed, because of the technology and the industry from which he benefited so obviously. Modernity was embraced as an end in itself only by a few liberal nationalists in China. It is not true that China was more "backward" in 1911, when the Qing dynasty was overthrown, as compared with France in 1790 or Japan in 187o, if judged in terms of the sophistication of the respective elite cultures. It is true that China lagged technologically, though the Chinese elite had no cultural bias against science as such. But, unlike most Type A cases, the state that was to be captured barely existed by 191o. Because there was so little to capture—unlike the Japanese experience—nationbuilding and state modernization became identical pursuits. These twin activities were made especially difficult to accomplish because social mobilization during the first two decades of the century was far less advanced in China than it was in western Europe and Japan when nation-building began there. Relatively few people had become available to play the novel political roles; the mobilized-unassimilated were concentrated in a few cities. The bulk of rural China remained traditional in 191o. For all these reasons, rationalization under liberal auspices was impossible. Many students date the real beginning of nationalist ideological articulation to 1919. Writing and agitation before the May Fourth Movement were the province of a small group of intellectuals and students. The ideas they advanced were nationalist sentiments, not yet full-fledged 1 It is unclear how early the notion of guocui was widely accepted, though it is unlikely to antedate the late nineteenth century. For an argument that it is much more ancient, the argument naturally preferred by contemporary Chinese nationalists, see Michael NgQuinn, "National Identity in Premodern China," in Lowell Dittmer and Samuel S. Kim, eds., China's Quest for National Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 32-62. China's name, the "Middle Kingdom," can be dated to the period of the Warring States, which ended in 23o B.C. The Qing dynasty standardized religious practice by enforcing rites honoring deities chosen by the emperors. In Chinese ritual, "correct form" alone mattered; content was unimportant. Hence neither patriotism nor nationalism, in the sense of a discrete body of values other than loyalty to superiors, had a place in traditional China. Even now the word aiguo (love of country/state, patriotism) is more often used than the more abstract (and contested) terms invented for "nationalism" in recent decades. See ibid., pp. 66 and 99.

2 6o

China

ideologies tailored for a mass audience. Sun Yat-sen's thoughts became a nationalist ideology when embedded in the organizational and agitational work of the Guomindang (GMD); Li Dazhao's thoughts became an ideology with the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). "We have the greatest population and our civilization is four thousand years old. . . . But the Chinese people have only family and clan solidarity; they do not have a national spirit. . . . In reality we are just a heap of loose sand."2 Thus thought Sun Yat-sen, acknowledged by all Chinese as the father of the modern Chinese nation-state. The people who, roughly, lived within the boundaries of modern China communicated with a single written language, though their spoken tongues were not necessarily mutually intelligible; they also professed the same two universal religions—Taoism and Buddhism—in addition to many local folk religions. The overwhelming majority is considered to belong to the Han "race." The literate among them tended to be contemptuous toward other races. Most of the time, since 221 B.c., there had existed a single state claiming sole jurisdiction over much of the same area, ruled by successive imperial dynasties with a centralized civil service and an army. That state elite professed and fostered a civil religion—Confucianism. The rulers considered themselves the center of the world in which all outsiders—barbarians— sought membership. But the writ of this state apparently did not reach below the level of county government; large sections of the country were never under effective central control; there were only restricted regional markets, not an imperial one; and rebellion was endemic. If China was a state, it certainly was not a rationalized one. Nor was it rationalized later, or even now. The national myth invented by the GMD regime, initiated by Sun Yat-sen, sought to ensure the survival of the Chinese state; it used an incoherent mixture of native syncretist and integralist ideas borrowed from the Soviet Union to fashion ruling institutions and values that did not catch on. The Maoist CCP regime that followed the GMD's defeat in 1949 was committed to the creation of an egalitarian, classless Chinese society while defending the Third World against capitalist imperialism and, after 196o, Soviet "hegemonism." Mao's integralist vision was opposed by other CCP leaders, who wanted to follow the Soviet model closely. Mao Zedong failed to rationalize China because he unleashed pent-up forces of discontent in the Cultural Revolution (1966-74), which almost destroyed all governing institutions and challenged all values. His successors Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin abandoned socialism as the organizing principle for the economy, rebuilt the Communist Party as a totalitarian ruler, borrowed As quoted from the first lecture of The Three Principles of the People (1924 version), by Elie Kedourie, Nationalism in Asia and Africa (New York: Meridian Books, 197o), p. 65. 261

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more extensively from the West than any previous Chinese ruler, gave up the international class struggle, and committed China to the overriding goal of achieving the standard of living of an advanced country. But this combination of economic reforms and political repression created an identity crisis for China because no new consensual myth took the place of the discarded Maoism. 'The sound and fury of official response to the challenge of [unclear] national purpose and direction only underlines the depth and scope of this unprecedented identity crisis."3 TRADITIONAL CHINA IN TURMOIL Summary of Events, 1894-1925 The key events began in 1894 when opponents of the ruling Qing dynasty, who saw the empire as ineffective in opposing the encroachments of Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and especially Japan, launched a "Revive China Society" with the aim of overthrowing the dynasty and establishing a republic.' The encroachments of the Western powers and Japan had been going on since 1840, reaching a crescendo in the 1894 war with Japan over control of Korea. China had been weakened by a number of extensive and long rebellions. An effort to reform the imperial system by introducing modern industry, technical education, and armed forces was begun in 1862 but abandoned by 1874; the Tong Ji Restoration had sought to justify the introduction of these Western techniques as mere "substance" (yong), in no way in conflict with the undiluted and uninterrupted "essence" of Confucian principles (ti). The famous ti/yong formula is a classic instance of restorative-syncretist Dittmer and Kim, China's Quest, p. 258. This section is based on the following works. Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964); Hilary J. Beattie, Land and Lineage in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Joseph W. Esherick, Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Mary C. Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962); Meribeth E. Cameron, The Reform Movement in China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1931); Mary C. Wright, ed., China in Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968); Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968); Joseph W. Esherick, Reform and Revolution in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976); Edward Friedman, Backward toward Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-Chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (New York: Atheneum, 1977); Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963). I also rely on two seminal chapters in Albert Feuerwerker, Rhoads Murphey, and Mary C. Wright, eds., Approaches to Modern Chinese History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967): Robert A. Scalapino, "Prelude to Marxism: The Chinese Student Movement in Japan, 1900-1910," and Joseph R. Levenson, 'The Province, the Nation, and the World." 4

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attempts at selective modernization, to be seen time and time again in subsequent decades. Sun Yat-sen, one of many students sent abroad in the 188os to help a Confucian country modernize selectively, then began a long series of efforts to organize, with these students, a revolutionary organization able to overthrow the empire. By 1911 more than a dozen uprisings had been attempted and put down. By then the so-called i oo-Day Reforms had been launched under reformist-syncretist ideological auspices to modernize the armed forces and the imperial administration. This effort led to a restorative-syncretist reaction under the auspices of the Boxers, a secret society practicing martial arts, inspired to resist Christian missionary efforts and to protect the dynasty against foreign influences. The defensive modernization measures attempted by the reformers were anathema to the Boxers. The Boxer Uprising of 1898-1900 led to more foreign military intervention and new economic and territorial humiliations, as well as to the debut of the United States as an active participant in the foreign penetration of China. It also led, however, to the beginning of the serious reorganization and modernization of the Chinese army. In 1911 units of this army mutinied and, in alliance with Sun's revolutionary organization, brought about the defeat and overthrow of the dynasty. The "republic" that took its place soon fell under the domination of a Qing commander of modernized forces, Yuan Shikai, who aroused the ire of the revolutionaries because he proved unwilling to oppose new and sweeping Japanese demands forcefully. His death in 1916 resulted in more than ten years of "warlord" rule, the effective breakup of China into large portions of territory ruled by provincial governors with their own substantial armies who fought one another over control of the central government. The confirmation of concessions to Japan in the Treaty of Versailles triggered, in 1919, an intense period of agitation for modernizing reforms known as the May Fourth Movement. It featured primarily students but also some workers and led to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as well as to the formation of other nationalist views. In this setting, Sun succeeded with the active aid of the Communist International in organizing a Leninist armed political party, the GMD. He seized control of the province of Guangdong (including the city of Guangzhou-Canton) in 1921 and established a government of the "Republic of China" there. It was this government, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, that after 1925 was to reunify China and begin the construction of a Chinese nation-state. As yet, however, there was neither a Chinese state nor a nation. There was merely a diffuse nationalist sentiment entertained by some of the literate strata of Chinese society (who 2 63

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accounted for less than Io percent of China's four hundred million people), a sentiment that included ideologies ranging from integralism to traditional syncretism. Qing China: Weak State, No Nation The officials who ruled traditional China referred to their country as "the world-of-all-under heaven." China was a universal empire, according to their doctrine, professing in Confucianism the world's highest elite culture. Only their culture counted; the culture of lesser breeds were thought of as potential Chinese. How rude the shock must have been when these lesser breeds, by 186o, had reduced Qing China to a cowering, helpless giant! The empire was ruled by a hereditary emperor who was considered the symbolic link between the people and heaven. The administration was in the hands of "literati," officials chosen mostly from the landowning gentry on the basis of mastery of Confucian texts. Personal merit was equated with an understanding of these classics, which stressed not the rational pursuit of interest but the practice of benevolence. Departure from the norm undermined the right to rule, for the lowest bureaucrat as well as for the emperor himself. An emperor who lost the mandate of heaven forfeited the right to rule. The inability to rule effectively in the face of defeat by foreign forces or challenge by domestic rebels was evidence of such a loss. Confucian doctrine—though its meaning was and is very contested— was both the ideology of the ruling literati and the official religion of the state, as well as the definer of elite culture as long as the mandate lasted. Confucianism stressed hierarchy, stability, courtesy, filial piety, and a chain of mutual obligations up and down the social hierarchy, as portrayed in figure 6-1. The purpose of the imperial administration was to preserve this system. By 186o it was clearly failing in this task. Chinese intellectuals conscious of this failing faced the challenge of how much of the tradition to jettison in order to save China from foreigners. This objective was made very difficult because Confucianism was constructed on eternal "essences" of perfection; processes of evolution, of becoming, of progressing were alien to it. Land and tax reform, practical education, capital investment for some future benefit, public service based on institutionalized incentives (rather than a feeling of rectitude) were not easily accommodated in the imperial administration. Yet, when some of these things were advocated by some officials after 186o, they were always justified in terms of Confucian doctrine—to restore past perfection by means of slight technical tinkering borrowed from the hated foreigners. Such reforms, though never sweepingly implemented, did not save the Qing 2 64

China Figure 6-1. Stratification in late traditional Chinese society • EMPEROR HEREDITARY NOBLES t

CHIN-SHIH CHU-JEN & KUNG-SHENG STATUS GROUPS

IMPERIAL. ELITE RANKED BUREAUCRATS

SHENG-YUAN & CHIENSHENG STATUS GROUPS

A

LOCAL ELITE

THOSE WHO STAFF OFFICIAL BUREAUS

THOSE WHO LEAD LOCAL POLITICAL SYSTEMS

m

UNCLEAN OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALISTS

ESCHEW MANUAL

-------

EXPENDABLES I

NUMBERS

dynasty from the loss of its heavenly mandate; on the contrary, they brought about the very social mobilization of the groups that overthrew the dynasty in 1911. Social Mobilization before 1925 Most reforms proposed before the Boxer Uprising were sabotaged by conservatives. But by 19oo some sections of the country, notably the seaports, had already come so much under the influence of the West that 2 65

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certain of the reforms arrived too late to satisfy the local interests. The very ideology justifying modern industry, professional armies, technical education, and modern civil service examinations contradicted the spirit of the reforms; how can filial piety and ancestor worship be combined with respect for competition, personal drive, the desire for material gain, or the insistence on the primacy and autonomy of the individual? By 1900, in short, contact with the West—though it was negative—had produced a critical mass of mobilized people not assimilated into the ruling circles. Who and where were they? China, during these years, had a population of between 400 and 450 million. Full statistical series are lacking; reliable statistics of any kind are scarce; our quantitative picture is very fragmentary. The educational reforms mandated after 1895, though executed very spottily, had resulted in the creation of 4,000 schools with Western curricula, with 103,000 students; by 1916 there were 130,000 such schools with an enrollment of 4 million. This was the core of the mobilized-unassimilated. The reformers had cleverly smuggled in the curricula (even though subversive of traditional values) as part of the Western yong, presumably unable to challenge the Chinese ti. The electorate comprised I percent of the population in 1909 (for elections to provincial assemblies), but it was supposedly 25 percent by 1912, even though elections were rather meaningless. In 1912 there were 794 chambers of commerce with 196,000 individual members, a number that rose to 1,242 with 245,000 members in 1915. In 1918 there were only 1,714,000 industrial workers, a third of whom worked in foreignowned factories, mines, and railways. The merchants and bankers organized in the chambers of commerce proved to be apathetic toward nationalist politics and not a reliable support for Sun's Revolutionary Alliance. The workers, however, were to become the shock troops of the anti-Western and anti-Japanese strikes and boycotts launched by the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Industry accounted for 17.6 percent of GDP in 1914-18 and services for 20.7 percent, with the rest remaining in agriculture.5 By 1933 these figures had not changed appreciably. GDP had risen by 28 percent despite fifteen years of very bloody civil war and repression of workers and of peasants; in fact, industrial production had grown by 44 percent despite the loss of the most industrialized portion of China—Manchuria—to the Japanese. The leadership of the nationalist revolution came from two groups: students who received advanced technical education in Japan (of whom there were 10,000 by 1910) and army units organized on the basis of the post-1898 reforms. These students were sent to Japan by the Qing These statistics are cited in Chow, May Fourth Movement, appendix A.

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China government to learn skills deemed useful in fighting the imperialists; they learned not only these skills but also to hate the alien dynasty that brought humiliation to China and to desire the overthrow of the dynasty by using its newly learned skills. Many of these students entered the newstyle army, where they proceeded to radicalize the peasant soldiers. The new army was made up of peasant volunteers recruited on the basis of personal probity and political commitment to the nation, not the apolitical rabble of the defeated army. Unlike their predecessors, they received military training and began to be equipped with modern weapons turned out by the new state arsenals. Students and armies, though organized only at the provincial level, acted in 1911 to purge China of the discredited Manchus as well as their Confucian principles of social and political organization. We do not know whether or not they had much support from the peasantry and the local gentry. Historically, Chinese peasants rebelled and joined secret societies and associated with folk religious cults when the state sought to increase the tax burden or to change the rental system. Historically, the local gentry sometimes allied with the peasants and sometimes with the state. Interclass alliances posed serious threats to the government. Such behavior is not evidence of full social mobilization, of the formation of nationalist attitudes or action. As far as we can tell, the behavior of the peasantry and the gentry was no more nationalistic in 1911 than on past occasions. It was, as it almost always had been, preoccupied with purely local issues despite the national focus of the provincial student and modern army movements. The Spectrum of Nationalist Ideologies The weakness of liberal nationalism. The chaotic experience of China under successive "republican" and "parliamentary" institutions between 1911 and 1921 did little for the fortunes of liberal nationalism and gave considerable impetus to the alleged ambitions of President Yuan Shikai to found a new imperial dynasty under syncretist auspices that justified modernization as a means to defeat growing Japanese incursions. Liberals were found among some students in the May Fourth Movement; one of the founders of the CCP, Li Dazhao, was a liberal at first. They were present among the artists, poets, and writers of the Shanghai literary scene, but not until the 192os. The novelist Hu Shi became the foremost exponent of the liberal-nationalist view. Integralism and syncretism, however, remained much more powerful shapers of nascent Chinese nationalism. Syncretist nationalisms abounded. We have already encountered the restorative syncretism of the Tong Ji restoration with its advocacy of 267

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Western technology and Western learning linked to Confucian principles. These nationalists, of course, favored monarchy and the retention of the old social order, perhaps not realizing that modern education and industry might prove incompatible with Confucian values and institutions. Major advocates of such views included Zeng Guofan (died 1872) and Zhang Zhi-tong (died 1909). The practitioners of traditional syncretism were more successful, at least at times. They stood for mobilizing the peasantry and persuading peasants to adjust to the modern world while stressing the Confucian theme of harmony among classes on the basis of a natural division of labor among them. They also advocated rural self-sufficiency but failed after 1930 because they ran up against the different nationalist programs espoused by the GMD and the CCP, though the young Chiang Kai-shek accepted parts of this program, along with Liang Shuming and Feng Gueifen. Reformist-syncretist nationalism included some of the most illustrious names in the late Qing reform movement, particularly Yan Fu, Kang Youwei, and Liang Qichao. They advocated many Western values by arguing that there was no inconsistency with Confucianism because "true" Confucian doctrine subsumes Western thought. But they admitted that China is not the center of the world and is subject to the same historical laws and processes as everyone else. The concrete program proposed excluded democracy, class conflict, and popular participation. It stressed educational and administrative reforms from above and relied heavily on industrial and military modernization. Much of this program was enacted before and after 1911. Marxist nationalism did not speak with a single voice. Chen Duxiu wanted to jettison all of Confucianism, arguing that there was no Chinese essence to preserve, that the task was the complete Westernization of all of China's values and institutions. But his contemporary Li Dazhao did not go that far; his view was later to become official in the sense that Mao Zedong embraced it. Li saw the essence of China in the genius of its peasants, whereas the state was oppressively corrupt. Unlike European Marxists, but like Mao, he stressed will and dedication, arguing that peasant participation in the resistance to imperialism could make China into a nation almost overnight. While still a liberal in 1915—when faced with Japan's 21 Demands—he argued that "whether or not we stand up in the world depends not on the survival of the old China, but on its resurrection as young China."6 The young China will be built on the basis of a dialectical synthesis of the old and the (Western) new, but the new was as much spiritual as material with the rural masses showing the way. The class struggle was international, between the proletarian nations and the 6

Meissner, Li Ta-Chao, p. 27.

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China imperialists, not domestic; the struggle was to be waged by the masses, not primarily by the Communist Party because socialist consciousness characterized the entire Chinese nation, not merely the proletariat (though Li did not consider gentry, compradors, and bureaucrats part of the nation). China, for the CCP, became the single most important proletarian nation, with the task of making its own revolution so as to "surround the cities with the countryside" internationally, that is, ensure the defeat of global imperialism. The "integralist syncretism" of the GMD. Was Sun Yat-sen an integralist or a syncretist? Which was Chiang Kai-shek? Which nationalism characterized the party they founded? The party changed its hue after it took power. During its formative period it was almost a mirror of all the other varieties of Chinese nationalism despite its centralist organization. It contained some liberals and many Marxists, as well as conservative landlords and businessmen who identified with various syncretist views. Until 1927 the Marxist/CCP component sought a coalition with the "left GMD," which rejected syncretist ideas. Increasingly after that year, however, the syncretist component gained strength. The mixture of ideologies is manifest in the work of Sun. He identified as Chinese everyone who lived within the borders of the republic, not just the Han; he insisted on a civic, not an ethnic, definition of citizenship to underline the national character of the republic in contrast to the imperial system it replaced. His understanding of democracy was organic and holistic, not disposed to tolerate majority rule, natural rights, and pluralist interest politics. Constitutional guarantees were to be introduced slowly in order not to compromise the organic unity of the nation. The GMD was to be the tutor of the people, to lead them gradually toward democracy. Sun advocated industrialization but ignored rural modernization because his ideas about economics were essentially Marxist. All this amounts to integral nationalism with slight concessions to liberalism. So is Sun's acceptance of Li's argument about the special international mission of China to lead the Asian proletariat to victory over Western imperialists. The syncretist element in Sun's thought becomes evident when we look at the Five-Yuan constitution for China which he designed. In addition to legislative, executive, and judicial yuans, it provided for distinctly Confucian elements in the form of a board of censors to monitor the virtue of officials and an organization to administer the civil service examinations. Sun also believed that the. universal validity of the Confucian-sanctioned Chinese Dao was going to be reestablished by China's renaissance because the whole world would become like China. Every faction claimed Sun as its father: the communists stressed the Leninist features, and the conservatives the Confucian ones. Sun's ideology inspired and legitimated the 2 69

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attack on the warlords and on Yuan Shikai, but it was gradually abandoned as the GMD expelled and attacked the CCP and took control of most of China after 1928.

Who Were the Nationalists? The eventual victory of Marxist integralism following the temporary ascendancy of the GMD's integralist syncretism was not foreordained. The May Fourth Movement with its confused stress on Western-inspired individualism makes that evident. In order to understand why the Chinese nationalist revolution took the form it assumed, we must recall that it did not feature the bourgeois forces we saw in the nationalist events in western Europe, in Russia, and or even in the Japan of the 186os. Who, then, were the Chinese revolutionaries before 1925? There is a great deal we still do not know about this period, and the question has never been fully answered. We do know that the revolution was not made by cohesive, united, and consistent groups or classes, though some forces were more prominent than others. Events differed from province to province. In some, those of the local gentry who had been exposed to Western ideas or education were active; in others, this was not the case. In the provinces of the Yangtze delta the groups resembling the Western bourgeoisie (who had developed thanks to the considerable Western investment there) became active supporters of Sun's short-lived Nanjing government in order to create a united nation, though they were not prominent in the events of 1911. Overall, Westerneducated students and army officers were the most active and consistent nationalists. In short, the revolutionaries were those who were mobilized by access to Western education and ideas, if they were denied immediate access to the status and benefits enjoyed by the rulers. But there was more to being unassimilated. The humiliation and shame experienced because of the blows to the Qing inflicted by the Western powers and Japan spurred disaffection from the dynasty. Many attributed the weakness of China to the persistence of Confucian values and institutions. The revolutionaries agreed only on one point: the dynasty had to go so that resistance to the Western powers—not Western ideas—could be organized. In a vague sense the revolutionaries all supported "progress," but of course they did not agree on what that implied. The very reforms urged by the last generation of innovative Confucian officials, which were partly enacted after 1895, created the groups that eventually overthrew the old order. Reformist Confucianism inadvertently destroyed the old China, though it was doomed in any case. 2 70

China

After 1919 the May Fourth Movement "nationalized" the entire process of building a new China. Before that, the idea of a nation grew as the result of developments in the provinces. Thanks in part to the devolution decreed in the last years of the Manchus, new representative and administrative institutions grew up in many provinces. These provided the fora in which gentry, students, and army officers became politically active. In stressing provincial autonomy, they undermined the power of Beijing, and by undermining Beijing in the name of a new China, they were eventually able to project nationalist themes and demands toward Beijing. It was the May Fourth Movement that, between 1919 and 1924, first gave a mass basis to these sentiments, a basis from which both the CCP and GMD were to derive their initial militants. The Beijing university students who started and animated the movement entertained explicit antisyncretist ideas: liberalism, anarchism, socialism, pragmatism, individualism, utilitarianism, and agnosticism. The catchwords were "prove all things" and "give us the evidence." Yet, despite the Western origins of this spectrum of ideologies, the participants always stressed the importance of exercising individual freedom in the service of the collectivity, the Chinese nation. Even though the Chinese ti was banished, the organic body of China was not. Getting rid of the family and clan as organizing units meant that the nation was to take their place. Western-style liberal nationalism played a very subdued role in the May Fourth Movement, whereas the discipline and total devotion preached by the GMD and the CCP was accepted as much more appropriate. These parties came to stand for progress, strength, and rebirth for the core clientele of the revolution. The May Fourth Movement was responsible for adding workers in the industries, railways, and ports of the littoral to the student and army base of the nationalist revolution. By 1924 nationalism was no longer the property of a small literate population still halfway identified with the old elite culture. WHY THE GUOMINDANG FAILED TO CREATE A NATION-STATE Early in 1923 Sun Yat-sen's reorganized revolutionary forces once again captured Canton.' This time, after a large number of failed prior This section relies primarily on the following sources. Lucian Pye, Warlord Politics (New York: Praeger, 1971); Philip Huang, The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985); Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); George Botjer, A Short History of Nationalist China (New York: Putnam's, 1979); Mary Wright, "From Revolution to Restoration," Far Eastern Quarterly 14, no. 4 (1955): 515-32; Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979); Robert A. Scalapino and Harold Schiffrin, "Early Socialist Currents in the Chinese Revolutionary Movement,"Journal of Asian Studies 18 (May 1959): 321-42;

271

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

attempts to gain a toehold, Sun succeeded in establishing a government that claimed to be the ruler of China. He was able to do so largely because a Comintern mission led by Michael Borodin had reorganized the party and its army along Leninist lines and because the Soviet Union supported him materially. Before the reorganization, GMD thought, as well as the ideology of its predecessor, the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, had been an unintegrated potpourri of leftist thought, in no way clarified by Sun's own confusion. Though an anti-imperialist, Sun had expected support from the West and from Japan, only to be disappointed. Hence he turned to Moscow for the consolidation of his revolutionary government. Borodin insisted that the GMD admit the recently founded CCP as an autonomous component to fashion a "united front," a standard communist technique for forging revolutionary alliances that could be terminated as soon as the communist component acquired sufficient strength to act alone. China in the 192os was ruled by "warlords." Who were they? The warlords were provincial military governors or local military commanders who had emerged from the modernization of the Chinese armed forces early in the century. They took advantage of the weakness of central governments after 1911 to make their provinces effectively independent of Beijing by levying their own taxes and concluding agreements with foreign powers. The warlord of northeast China and Manchuria, Zhang Zuolin, was often in the pay of Japan; but his son, Zhang Xueliang, was a GMD supporter. Others alternated between supporting and fighting the GMD, as well as one another. After Sun's death in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek, the commander of the GMD's military academy, emerged as the leading GMD figure. In 1927 and 1928 he systematically attacked and defeated the warlords one by one; he often incorporated their troops into the GMD army rather than destroying them and gave their commanders positions within the GMD organization. In 1928 he "unified" China, at least on paper, and estabHoward L. Boorman, "Wang Ching-wei," Political Science Quarterly 79 (December 1964): 504-25; Ka-che Yip, Religion, Nationalism, and Chinese Students (Bellingham, Wash.: Center for East Asian Studies, 198o); John Israel, Student Nationalism in China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966); John de Francis, Nationalism and Language Reform in China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 195o); Chalmers A. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962); Lucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971); Holmes Welch, The Buddhist Revival in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968); Parks Coble, The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 198o); Paul K. T. Sih, The Strenuous Decade (New York: St. John's University Press, 197o), especially the chapters by Theodore Chen and Dison Hsueh-Feng Poe; Robert E. Bedeski, State Building in Modern China (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1981); June Dreyer, China's Forty Millions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976); George Moseley III, The Consolidation of the South China Frontier (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). 2 72

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lished a new national capital in Nanjing; his regime was recognized by other states as the legitimate government of China. In 1927 he had broken the united front with the CCP, attacked CCP strongholds, massacred CCP trade unionists in Shanghai when he captured the city, and forced the remnants of the CCP to flee into the interior to begin their gradual retreat into northwest China. Far from terminating factional fighting within the ideologically still heterogeneous GMD, however, the creation of the Nanjing government set the scene for intensified internal conflict and continuing local revolts by rival GMD commanders. One bone of contention in the governing party was how "left" it ought to be, or how revolutionary. Chiang's faction turned more and more conservative, as others, notably Wang Jingwei, remained committed to radical change even after the expulsion of the CCP and the launching of eradication campaigns against it. The left wanted to make the reformed peasantry the basis of the regime; because the GMD oppressed the peasants instead, the left faction later came to favor the CCP. The main object of contention, however, was how to respond to Japan. Japan had seized all of Manchuria and parts of the provinces north and west of Beijing, beginning in 1931. In 1932 Japan attacked and seized parts of Shanghai. Tokyo made it clear that Japan considered all of China to be its exclusive sphere of influence, a position that brought about a tacit alliance between the GMD and the United States. In 1937 Japan launched a full attack on China and rapidly conquered the entire littoral and the most developed parts of the interior. China lost all its industry and its seaports. Between 1931 and 1937 Chiang had sought to placate Japan, make concessions, and delay fighting until his forces were thought able to stand up to Japan's; his GMD opponents, however, wanted to fight Japan then and there. After 1937 the GMD was forced to fight, albeit not very successfully. By that time, however, some GMD members, led by Wang Jingwei, had joined the Japanese as collaborators, considering it the only way to continue the modernization of China. China, of course, was saved by the military victory of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain. By 1945, however, the refugee CCP government had created a successful state of its own in Yan'an, in primitive and rural northwest China, from which it effectively fought the Japanese occupation forces as well as the GMD. The Yan'an regime also experimented with rural reforms the GMD had spurned. It soon proved both more popular and more effective than the GMD as it destroyed the GMD armies in a civil war that raged between 1945 and 1949. In 1949 the CCP, capturing Beijing, became the government of China. Marxist integral nationalism won out over the syncretist Confucian fascism the GMD came to embrace as its national myth. 273

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Social Mobilization under the Guomindang China developed enormously after 1912, as even the fragmentary data in table 6-1 make clear. From an estimated population in 1912 of 43o million China grew to 58o million by 1953 despite almost thirty-five years of war and civil war, many natural disasters, and the absence of rudimentary public health practices. Fighting during the warlord period was extremely costly in terms of casualties. By 1936 foreign investments totaled $3.5 billion, 40 percent of which were contributed by Japan and 35 percent by Britain; $332 million were in manufacturing facilities, 54 percent of which were owned by British investors and 40 percent by Japanese. It must be underscored that these installations were overwhelmingly in Manchuria and in the treaty ports, which were still subject to extraterritorial Western governance. The number of universities and college students had risen greatly too, but again they were disproportionately found in the large coastal and river cities. Urbanization had been slow before the 192os. The interwar depression, drought, and flooding combined, however, to cause almost 5 percent of the Chinese peasantry to migrate to the cities between 1934 and 1936. China had never had a truly integrated market coterminous with the state. The disruptions of the warlord period, however, increased the economic fragmentation of the country. Continuing and rapid development of industrial and communications facilities was concentrated in areas most subject to foreign penetration; in the rural countryside very little of any of this was felt. Modern industrialists and financiers whose fortunes depended on foreign business activity continued as before, throwing their lot in with the GMD in the treaty ports only when the success of the CCP in organizing their workers made this strategy seem opportune. Traditional merchants and moneylenders, however, found that they could not do business under the chaotic economic conditions of warlord rule and therefore were politically mobilized to support the GMD. Intellectuals, already mobilized attitudinally, could not support warlord rule and therefore were induced during this period to become politically engaged with either the GMD or the CCP. Even the countryside, especially in north China, did not totally escape the modernization and mobilization process. Because of cotton and peanut production, north China was linked to the global economy by the twentieth century. Free wage labor increased at the expense of sharecropping serf-like rural work relations. The great majority of poor peasants, tenants and owners alike, hired out as contract workers, producing crops that tied these people to the outside world. As home cotton spinning declined because of the growth of factories in the ports, home weaving developed as an alternative village-based industry. 274

Table 6-1. China: Indicators of social mobilization and modernization, 19121945 Approximately 1912 Production Manufacturing as % GDP Agriculture as % GDP Services as % GDP Coal (mil. tons) Steel (mil. tons) Pig iron (mil. tons) Index of industrial production (1933 = i oo)

18 62 21 5,166 3 8

1925

12

20 59 21

26 (1952) 46 (1952) 26 (1952)

100

115

(1947)

15

Rural illiteracy Men (%) Women (%)

Communications Railways (kin) (40% constructed in Manchuria by Japan) Surfaced roads (km) Pop. reading newspapers (%) Newspapers mailed (millions) Telephone customers Telegraph offices Radio sets owned (thousands) Radio stations (half in Shanghai) Cinemas (mostly in 5 largest cities)

1 945

17,694 30 258

Percentage of school-age children attending school

Urbanization (pop. in thousands) Beijing Tianjin Qingdao Shanghai

1933

69 99 725 32o 54 67o

863 837 83 2,482 (1920)

9,618

13,040

0 1 25 (1908)

40,000 2 108 565 (1919)

24,845

209 56,000 1,404 Imo 93 300

98

SOURCE: Statistics were taken from Marie-Claire Bergere, "The Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911-37," in John K. Fairbanks, ed., The Cambridge History of China, vol. 12, pt. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 721-825; Albert Feuerwerker, "Economic Trends, 1912-49," in ibid., pp. 28-127; Rudolf Lowenthal, "Public Communications in China before July 1937," Chinese Social and Political Science Review (April—June 1938): 42-58. NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which date were obtained.

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

China as a whole was very unevenly socially mobilized by 1937. Social mobilization was well advanced along the coast, in the Yangtze Valley, and in Manchuria; but the interior was changed only in areas under CCP control. Nation-building throughout the country could not be accomplished in the absence of social mobilization. It was the war against Japan and the civil war between the two nationalist factions which pushed the countryside into political self-awareness. Confucian Fascism Becomes the National Myth The GMD had been bedeviled ideologically ever since the May Fourth Movement's emphasis on "progress through science" and its wholesale condemnation of traditional Chinese thought. The students and intellectuals aligned with the GMD continued to profess these ideas, only to be faced with increasingly syncretist and even neo-Confucian views by others in the party as the GMD became the government of China. The fact that the faith in science had cohabited with many varieties of radicalism, some very romantic and very un-Marxist, did not facilitate the achievement of a consensus on the content of Chinese nationalism; nor did it predispose the new rulers to a cognitive style that would further government learning. The final expulsion of the Marxists from the GMD in 1927 by no means ended its factionalism. Integralism and syncretism continued to coexist under the same leaky roof. In order to show the confused and often fraudulent character of the GMD's Confucian syncretism, I contrast it with a true Confucian reformer of the 193os, Liang Shuming. Liang rejected such Western institutions as democracy and science as inconsistent with the Chinese spirit; he also disliked industrialism, being concerned with reviving rural life. The Chinese Dao had to be redefined to make use of what the West had to offer, thus being cured and strengthened to eject the imperialist invaders. His Confucianism focused not on the state but on improved social relations among peasants, a concern that endeared him more to the CCP than to the GMD. Yet Liang was no simple traditionalist; he was eager to graft rural cooperatives and credit unions, selfdefense forces and village-based educational centers on the countryside, Western institutions he thought able to restore the Dao. The GMD did not feature this form of consistent traditional syncretism. Chiang, who began to restore the Confucian canon and its nineteenthcentury Qing reformer exponents in 1928, proved to be far more eclectic, if not opportunistic. He asserted as GMD doctrine Sun's program and principles: China had to be strengthened and modernized before it could become democratic; imperialism had to be defeated before the 276

China

march to greatness could be resumed. This required a disciplined vanguard party, industrialization, technical education guided by state morality, and carefully controlled mass movements. As far as Chiang was concerned, this could be achieved by using three different GMD programs, and the groups associated with them, while marginalizing those party members who wanted to rely on spontaneous mass movements among peasants and workers, or true traditional syncretists such as Liang and Hu Hanmin. The three groups were the Blue Shirts, the New Life Movement, and the "Organization" (or "CC" Clique). The Blue Shirts were a secret society of army officers organized along fascist lines professing Sun's vision of nationalism. Chiang was to be obeyed by all with complete devotion. Unable to field mass organizations as the European fascists did, the Blue Shirts put emphasis on totalitarian education for all, the Confucian ideal of good government derived from right thought and conduct. The CC Clique was a close-knit, informal group of scholar-bureaucrats whose objective was to dominate the GMD machinery in order to make it serve Chiang more effectively. They also aspired to the control of all educational and communications media in order to make them serve Confucian values of hierarchy and order. Whereas the Blue Shirts professed fascist integral nationalism with a Confucian veneer, the CC Clique's views were reformist-syncretist with some acceptance of integralist notions. Western industrial, managerial, and organizational institutions were welcomed, but democraticparticipatory values were rejected. Still, the Clique, like Chiang himself, was quite clear that more was at stake than marrying the Western yong to the Chinese ti; the Clique realized that the ti itself was in need of redefinition. Not merely courtesy, respect for tradition, and hierarchy were required to defend China; discipline and patriotism were just as necessary. The New Life Movement (NLM) was to translate these syncretist notions into mass-based action. The purpose of the NLM was to teach patriotism by leading people to cultivate a personal morality whose content was drawn directly from the four cardinal principles and eight virtues of classic Confucianism, slightly redefined to suit the world of the i93os. The NLM consisted of mass meetings and educational centers at which the Confucianism of the reformers of the 186os was dished out in the form of simplified slogans; Confucian rites were celebrated again in reopened temples, and Confucian texts were republished. The idea was to make people work harder, obey orders, and identify with the public purpose of fighting and building up industry. The governor of Jiangxi province commented on all this by saying that "as far as Chiang's NLM and his return to tradition were concerned, 277

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Chiang ignored the most important value of tradition in China— justice."8 The NLM was sloganized unsubtle Confucianism patterned on the sloganized propaganda of European fascism. It was simply the most natural method of creating controllable mass movements to resist Japan that came to the mind of the GMD leaders. There was nothing genuinely Confucian about this. By 1937 even Chiang admitted the failure of the NLM, but that admission brought about no new ideological initiatives. Even though membership in the GMD had exceeded 600,000 by 193o, Chiang lamented that "party members no longer strive either for the principles or for the masses. . . . Many officials have become equivocal toward the party and toward the doctrine."9 Totalitarian Policy Making Is Not Adaptation or Learning Between 1928 and 1937 China had no economic policy. The GMD could not make up its mind how seriously to take its own official commitment to socialism. The Nanjing government had only tenuous control over those parts of the country in which rehabilitated warlords still ruled. Taxes were collected capriciously and often by force. Inflation was rife. The GMD shifted to a policy of neglecting the peasantry after 1928, except to collect food from farmers, by force in many cases. Conversely, political support for the GMD came increasingly from the landowning gentry who opposed the peasantry. The GMD exploited the modern business sector in parts of the country not yet under Japanese control by making it buy government bonds but did not truly depend on its support, though the substitution of totalitarian-style official unions for free trade unions was one link between the two. The commitment to importsubstituting industrialization, which pleased the urban groups, was not implemented consistently. The government ignored its own constitution. Of the five yuans, only the executive operated as planned. Administration followed the Leninist model; it was difficult to distinguish party from government. Civil service examinations, when held at all, had only modern content. Corruption among officials was proverbial. All this discredited the Confucian veneer among intellectuals, workers, and peasants and created a mockery of the effort to inculcate patriotism. The CCP was to be the beneficiary of the disillusionment, though it was barely surviving in the primitive west of China during these years. The fascist model was visible in the field of education as well. Although it failed to yield a disciplined and patriotic citizenry, it undoubtedly contributed to rapid social mobilization. Schools, 8 9

Quoted in Boger, Short History of Nationalist China, p. 145. Quoted in Eastman, Abortive Revolution, pp. 4-5. 2 78

China

where they existed, were organized along military lines. Compulsory military training was part of everyone's education from kindergarten on. Nazi-type youth movements were compulsory. Practical subjects were stressed at the expense of the humanities. Education did not respect the social status of the students; everyone was forced to spend a period of time in physical labor. Said one GMD official: "The children we educate are the nation's children, not children of the family or clan. The ultimate goal of educational policy must be the nation."10 Sun's will was read aloud in each class once a week as the class bowed to his portrait on the wall. Less structured educational activities were also carried on through various outreach programs. Literacy was actively encouraged, but only in the use of the Beijing-Mandarin form of the Chinese language, which was employed everywhere as the medium of instruction. Other striking GMD policy failures include the dysfunctional organization of the army, the treatment of ethnic minorities, language policy, and ties with regions not under central control, as well as in foreign relations. The continued use of Mandarin written in the ideographic manner was a distinct issue concerning all varieties of nationalists. The controversy was resolved in 1937 with the reaffirmation of Qing policy, largely as a result of Confucian arguments advanced by the CC Clique. Before that decision, however, the GMD had considered various schemes of romanization, whose sponsors had argued since 1911 that no modern strong nation could be built on the basis of the traditional mode of writing. The hegemony of Mandarin had also been questioned by some, an opinion that became treasonous after 1937. Military administration was a scandal because it was based on the forcible conscription of peasants, who were ill-fed and ill-clothed after impressment and generally treated as being without rights and dignity. Increasingly, after 1937, they refused to fight. Cynical GMD officers noted "five discords": between government and army, party and army, people and army, army and army, officer and soldier. Troops were motivated by the "three don'ts": don't care to fight, don't care about people, don't care about myself." Military disorganization was matched by Chiang's reluctance to fight Japan before 1937, a feeling that led to nine major regional mutinies in the decade before 1937 by units and commanders eager to fight Japan more aggressively. Clearly, these were units made up of troops more highly motivated than the majority of peasant conscripts. Chiang demanded that the Western powers give up extraterritorial rights; their refusal hardly strengthened his legitimacy. Student frustration over military and diplomatic failure eventuated in the '° Ibid., pp. 47-48. Jack Belden, China Shakes the World (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1949), P. 335.

11

279

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

December Ninth Movement of 1935, which gave rise to the National Salvation Movement, an agitational alliance of students, intellectuals, and even merchants who insisted on energetic resistance to Japan. The GMD encouraged this mass movement until it was overtaken by the events of 1937. GMD policy toward ethnic minorities was as confused as the thought of Sun Yat-sen on the subject, until the 193os. Sun had at first embraced the doctrine that the Chinese nation was made up of five "stocks": Han, Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan, and Central Asian (Muslim), thus neglecting the many tribal and Muslim groups in southern and western China. Later he taught that history had really fashioned a single Han race of all five and that the non-Han peoples ought speedily to complete their assimilation into Han culture. And still later he adopted the Soviet view that China was really a multiethnic nation-state in which each ethnic group ought to have guaranteed cultural rights. The GMD eventually was to make the second position its own whereas the CCP adopted the third. GMD policy favored the assimilation of all non-Han groups into Han culture. Chiang put it this way: "The various stocks in China constitute not only one nation but also one race. This is why the entire Chunghua nation . . . is destined to live gloriously or perish ignominiously as a whole. . . . The distinction between the five stocks is territorial as well as religious, but not ethnological."12 As the war went on, more and more Han refugees moved west and south, resulting in the alienation of minority-settled lands. Mongols were denied the request to set up a single autonomous region for themselves. Uighurs and Kazaks, whenever deprived of covert Soviet support, were beset with Han immigrants and GMD oppression. Tibetans became victims of social and economic discrimination as well as being compelled to undergo Han education. Only the tribal groups in the south were left to their own devices. Why Did the Guomindang Fail to Rationalize China? In the area under CCP control the disruption caused by Japan and the atrocities practiced by Japanese troops mobilized peasants into nationalists willing to be organized by strangers from the south to resist effectively. Peasant-based nationalism was triggered by Japan in north China. A reasonably rationalized economy and administration emerged in north China. Why could the same disruptions and atrocities not trigger a similar response in central and south China? Writing fifty years after the event, one is tempted to say that the CCP learned, and the GMD did not, to cater to the peasantry, redistribute 12

Quoted in Moseley, South China Frontier, p. 13.

28o

China

income and land, treat its soldiers and ethnic minorities with care and dignity, and show its patriotic devotion by also fighting the Japanese. All this is true but misleading. Having committed itself to fascist Confucianism as its form of the Chinese national myth and to the gentry as its social base, the GMD had no time to work out syncretist institutions that might have rationalized China temporarily because it was too busy fighting and being defeated. But it is undeniable that the GMD made things worse by not learning from its obvious failings, by wallowing in personal corruption, and by repressing the peasantry even though alternatives existed short of land reform." Even the fraudulent popular "participation" practiced by the CCP in Yan'an might have provided some legitimacy. The CCP adopted the principle that if China is the most proletarian of proletarian nations, then the peasantry is the proletariat of the proletarian nation. It organized the peasantry in areas under its control into self-help and self-administering units (under the control of communist cadres, to be sure); it "empowered" hitherto subservient people. Instead of redistributing land, it taught peasants to make certain local decisions collectively as it taught them to fight with confidence. The CCP took advantage of the war in north China to give self-respect to a peasantry that had been helpless before, to offer an alternative to quasi-serfdom and to imperialist victimization. The enemy was no longer only the landlord and the warlord but a foreign entity in faraway Tokyo whose local agents could be represented as a historical evil that could be expunged by organized human effort. That spirit and that self-confidence was expressed as a revolutionary integral nationalism. How COMMUNISM MADE AND ALMOST DESTROYED THE CHINESE NATION-STATE Building the Nation-State, 1949-1965 The proclamation of the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in October 1949, after the flight of the defeated GMD to the island of Taiwan, marked the first time since 1840 that all the historic Chinese state was ruled by a single government, not fragmented into separate enclaves dominated by foreign powers, warlords, or successful rebels." Not only Japan was expelled. Britain and France gave up their 13 Despite GMD failure to develop an economic policy, some GMD economists were able to work out a postwar plan for rapid industrialization that was put successfully into operation in Taiwan after 1949. Similarly, the CCP used aspects of that plan in its initial thrust toward rapid industrialization. 14 This section is largely based on the following: Dreyer, China's Forty Millions, James Townsend, Politics in China (Boston: Little, Brown, 198o); John Cleverly, The Schooling of

281

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

coastal holdings as well, with the exception of Hong Kong and Portugal's Macao. Extraterritorial rights became history. The Soviet Union, after stripping Manchuria of much of its industrial equipment, acquired a lease on the former Japanese territory around the Dairen naval base; it was given back to China in 1955. Tibet was forcibly reintegrated in 195o. Only Taiwan and some small islands offshore remained outside Beijing's control because they were shielded by the United States Navy. Formally, the government of the PRC was a "united front of all progressive forces," not a dictatorship of the proletariat. It was presented as a "people's dictatorship," an alliance of all classes not compromised by imperialism. Some small noncommunist groups were given formal (but not effective) representation in organs of government in order to underscore that China was going to build socialism with the help of all antiimperialist social forces but had not yet achieved that goal. In fact, the government was indistinguishable from the party; the same people ran both, the civilian bureaucracy as well as the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA became a model of communist organization and China (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1985); Byung-joon Ahn, Chinese Politics in the Cultural Revolution (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976); Charles Ridley, Paul Goodwin, and Dennis Doolin, The Making of a Model Citizen in Communist China (Stanford: Hoover

Institution, 1971); Suzanne Pepper, "Education and Political Development in Communist China," Studies in Comparative Communism 3 ( July—October 197o): 132-57; Richard Baum and Frederick C. Teiwes, Ssu-Ch 'ing (Berkeley: University of California, Center for Chinese Studies, 1968); Samuel Kim, ed., China and the World (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989); Kenneth Lieberthal, Revolution and Tradition in Tientsin (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 198o); Vivienne Shue, Peasant China in Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 198o); Chu-Yuan Cheng, Scientific and Engineering Manpower of Mainland China (Studies prepared for the Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, 1967); Tai Sung An, Mao Tse Tung's Cultural Revolution (New York: Pegasus, 1972); Tang Tsou, The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Edward Friedman, "Maoism, Titoism, Stalinism: Some Origins and Consequences of Maoist Theory of the Socialist Tradition," in Mark Selden and Victor Lippit, eds., The Transition to Socialism in China (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1982), pp. 159-214; Chalmers Johnson, Autopsy on People's War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973) ; J. D. Armstrong, Revolutionary Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); Peter Van Ness, Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 197o); Holmes Welch, Buddhism under Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); Stephan Feuchtwang, "The Problem of 'Superstition' in the PRC," in Gustavo Benavides and M. W. Daly, eds., Religion and Political Power (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 43-68; Gordon Bennett, Yundong: Mass Campaigns in Chinese Communist Leadership (Berkeley: University of California, Center for Chinese Studies, 1976); Susan L. Shirk, Competitive Comrades (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); James R. Townsend, Political Participation in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); Lee Lai To, Trade Unions in China (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1986); Lowell Dittmer, "Public and Private Interests in the Participatory Ethic in China," in Victor Falkenheim, ed., Citizens and Groups in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987), pp. 17-44; Lowell Dittmer, "The Radical Critique of Political Interest," Modern China 6 (October 198o): 363-96; Victor Nee and David Mozingo, eds., State and Society in Contemporary China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). 2 82

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dedication; because of its enormous prestige after defeating the numerically superior and better-equipped GMD armies, it was presented as the organization all others were to emulate. Compared with the efforts of the CCP to force people into an awareness of belonging to a huge community few will ever experience in person, the prior attempts to achieve this feat made by the GMD and the intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement seem puny and ineffectual. The students of 1919 made themselves aware of this sense of belonging as well as infecting some urban workers in a few seaports. The GMD aroused more intellectuals but essentially succeeded only in mobilizing peasants against the state while discrediting the idea of the nation in the minds of rural folk, even as its policies incited awareness of impersonal forces. Those who fashioned this mobilization were themselves previously mobilized but rejected by the ruling GMD elite. In mobilizing the bulk of the population, first in north China and eventually elsewhere, the CCP saw to it that the newly aroused were immediately assimilated into new institutions, albeit totalitarian ones. The complaints of the Red Guards suggest that even this assimilation proved superficial for many. The sheer numbers, however, are impressive, as shown in table 6-2. The most striking events took place before the Great Leap. China's population after the civil war was skewed heavily in favor of youth. Over 53 percent of the population was under the age of twenty-five in 1953. Ten years later that number was almost 6o percent. These numbers presented the CCP with an enormous opportunity for early indoctrination of future cadres and workers but also demanded the creation immediately of a very large number of schools. Successful mobilization was most marked in the countryside, where the authorities succeeded in managing, with general support, far-reaching transformations in historical power relations well before the organization of communes. The cadres succeeded, just as Mao later complained, by appealing to peasant self-interest in gaining land, reducing rents, and increasing production. The CCP did not invoke the utopia of selfless service to the nation but instead focused peasant attention on the landlord as the class enemy. Even though rural tax revenues increased eventually, tax evasion among peasants continued to flourish in the 195os as rich and middle peasants limited their income to appear poorer. Social mobilization was even more in evidence in the field of technical and scientific personnel development. The number of engineers increased from 164,000 in 1952 to 1,400,000 ten years later. There were 2.5 million scientific researchers (apparently including technicians) by 1962, a fourfold increase since 1955. Expenditures for education increased tenfold during the decade of the fifties, but outlays for scientific research grew from $2 million in 1951 to $459 million by 1960! Between 2 83

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS Table 6-2. China: Indicators of social mobilization Approximately

Population (millions)a Population growth rate Living in cities (%)' Illiteracy, semiliteracy (%)d

1950

1960

1975

1990

552 19.0 N/A N/A

662 27.0 N/A 46 (1964)

924 12.7 N/A 28 (1982)

1,132

201

610 19,500 668,000 17,564 76 N/A

392 125,500 1,093,000 171,749 N/A 71

12,700 11,600 N/A N/A

36,500 32,000 N/A N/A

No. of schools' Higher learning Secondary Primary Kindergarten Rural labor force (%)f Workers in agriculture

4,300 527,000 6,531 88 N/A

(%)g Magazine reading'' Newspaper reading' Radio stations TV stationsi

7,372 N/A N/A

11,900

14.3 19 18

1,079 89,575 777,200 172,600 N/A 6o 171,450 115,700 531 469

SOURCE: China Statistical Yearbook, 1990 ed., unless otherwise stated. a Table 3.1. b Table 3.2. • Table 3.4 in 1992 edition of Yearbook; people inhabiting cities of loo,000 or more. d Table 3.4 in 1992 edition of Yearbbook. • Table 18.1. Table 4.1. g Table 4.2. h Average printed copies per issue, table 18.84. ' Same, table 18.85. Table 18.93.

1948 and 1963 the number of technically trained university graduates increased from 21,000 to 200,000 per year, though clearly most of these were not the equivalent of Western postgraduate degree holders. Unless the measures ultimately taken in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were carried out, Mao and his allies concluded, the Western instrumental logic in the minds of insufficiently "red" experts was likely to subvert the emancipation from Western and from Confucian

2 84

China ways. Lin Biao sought to stress "redness" in the PLA by ridiculing the need for technological prowess, rank, organization, and hierarchy; after his death in 1971 the new PLA leadership reversed course again by stressing the very qualities Lin had reviled. The Communist National Myth Chinese communist doctrine is often called sinicized Marxism. The determination to avoid aping Western thought and to shed Confucian traditions caused special problems for Chinese communist historiography, particularly for ideologists aware that Marxism is quintessentially Western. Those who fashioned the communist national myth for China were careful to claim that—contrary to Western Marxists—capitalism existed since Ming days, the Han nation goes back to the Ming at least, and possibly to the Qin emperor; that Western imperialism alone is to blame for the weakness of the Qing, not feudalism or Confucianism; and that the class struggle is a concept not fully applicable to Chinese history. Not the interests of the classes allied in the people's dictatorship but a holistic general will characterizes the striving of the Chinese nation. A unique Chinese ti makes its appearance even in Mao's national myth. It too was challenged by the Cultural Revolution. The ideological story of nationalist orthodoxy in Mao's China can be told in terms of the ups and downs of the "Yan'an myth," the interpretation of Chinese identity derived from the experience gained between 1937 and 1945, as fashioned by Mao and his acolytes. The myth holds that victory came to the CCP because of its identification with "the masses," that the "mass line" is the sole guide to truth. The party, by listening to and interpreting the striving of ordinary people ("taking from the masses") is then in a position to make "correct" policy to bring about communism ("taking to the masses"). Mass opinion as interpreted by whoever controls the party becomes the explanation of ends and means chosen, and of the reason for success. Admitted failure is due to mistakes in following the mass line, severely punished by self-criticism, public humiliation, removal from office, and banishment, a fate suffered twice by the man who led China beyond Maoism, Deng Xiaoping. Sometimes an official "fails" because she or he cannot distinguish properly between "antagonistic" and "nonantagonistic" contradictions, another Maoist ideological addition to Marxism formulated after the Yan'an period. The former refers to interclass conflict and must be fought violently; the latter occurs because even communists make mistakes. Those who know better must correct them by persuasion, self-criticism, and shaming. Misreading the mass line is an antagonistic 2 85

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

contradiction because it pretends that all contradictions among classes have disappeared, when in reality they had reemerged! That was the error of Liu Shaoqi and of all those who became victims of the Red Guards. Their crime was to forget the Yan'an myth by stressing bureaucracy, expertise, selfishness, interest-informed instrumental behavior, and the careful calculation of costs. These trends were read by the CCP "left" as evidence of the reappearance of capitalism. The Yan'an myth, by contrast, is predicated on spontaneity, downplaying authority and hierarchy, and ideological devotion to the welfare of the masses. It also celebrates the "countryside" and denigrates "cities"; that is, rural virtues and institutions are superior to urban organization and sophistication. Therefore, war waged by simple peasants will eventually defeat city-based enemies (i.e., enemies with a superior technological base). In the formulation adopted by the PLA's Lin Biao, even internationally the "countryside" (Third World countries victimized by capitalist imperialism) will "surround" and eventually defeat the "cities" (the industrialized West and—after 196o—the Soviet Union). The Cultural Revolution was designed to reaffirm this national myth after it suffered severe battering at the hands of critics of the Great Leap Forward and of the break with Moscow. Its purpose was to turn all China into a nation of spiritual proletarians. Mao certainly considered the Cultural Revolution evidence of the CCP's learning to distinguish contradictions properly and to return China to the road to communism. In 1962 he lost an argument within the CCP bureaucracy because the central bureaucrats insisted on keeping a new movement to reinvigorate rural cadres under its control merely to root out corruption, a nonantagonistic contradiction, whereas Mao wanted a mass movement because he saw the evil as a conflict among classes. This experience, some observers think, was the germ of the Cultural Revolution's effort to purge the CCP. It finally alienated the left from the "Stalinists" (Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai, Yang Xianzhen), who wanted to keep "leaning to one side" while following systematic central planning in achieving industrialization, and from the "Titoists" (Zhou Enlai, Sun Yefang, Chen Yun), who wanted to combine a patriotic front with other communist and progressive forces in Third World countries with gradual economic growth respecting market forces. The Yan'an national myth was also used by Mao as a guide to foreign relations. The break with the Soviet Union was partly due to the left's inability to accept Khrushchev's attack on Stalinism as good Marxism; Khrushchev seemed to put into question the entire history of building bridges to the international revolutionary movement and discredited Moscow as its leader. Instead, until 1972, Mao made the notion of "people's war" into a cornerstone of foreign policy. Defeating imperial286

China ism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America was a historical task in its own right, not merely a tactic in defeating the Western capitalists (as it had been for Lenin and Stalin).15 The united fronts to be constructed there must always remain under communist control. Revolutionary armed struggle everywhere must be carried out by peasant armies and derive from the social mobilization of peasants. And yet, while the imperialists were still fighting on China's doorstep in Vietnam, Mao was willing to downplay the global united front of peasants to form an alliance with the United States which Beijing saw as useful for threatening Moscow. Were the contradictions between America and China nonantagonistic after all? Deng certainly came to that conclusion after Mao died in 1976. Planning, Ruining, and Rebuilding the Economy The CCP achieved some imposing successes in industrializing China and also incurred some terrible self-imposed failings. The basic story is told in tables 6-3 and 6-4. During the first seven years after seizing power the economic planners sought to emulate the Soviet experience, the only model of totalitarian industrialization familiar to them. Aided by massive infusions of Soviet capital and technical assistance, the war-shattered economy recovered rapidly and Soviet-style central planning began to produce results. In one of the most striking historical cases of deliberately ignoring positive objective experience in favor of ideological preconceptions, Mao decided in 1958 that the Soviet methods were too Western, too dependent on expertise and on science. In launching the Great Leap Forward, he sought to apply the lessons he thought he had learned in fighting a successful guerrilla war from Yan'an in which inferior forces defeated materially superior ones by relying on dedication, iron will, and commitment to an ideal presented in the catechism of "Mao Zedong Thought." Human dedication—the Chinese way—was held superior to the West's and the Soviets' reliance on materialism. Planning was suspended; experts were sidestepped; the breakthrough to industrial society was going to be achieved by relying on spontaneously organized popular 15 The Maoist ideological justification for identifying with the Third World was jettisoned after the rapprochement with the United States, when Beijing made the argument that China was an independent great power able to maintain ties with all countries. This stance, in turn, was abandoned in 1989 as a result of Western economic sanctions imposed after the Tiananmen massacre, in favor of a wavering alliance with the Third World to resist imperialism. Until 1981 China denounced the United Nations as a tool of American imperialism and refused to participate in UN peacekeeping operations. Thereafter, as part of its application to join the major multilateral economic organizations, China selectively supported peacekeeping. Evidently, a healthy dose of instrumentalism governs China's foreign policy regardless of ideology.

287

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS Table 6-3. Growth of Chinese economy, 1950-1975 Approximately 1950

1962

1970

National income' Agriculture Industry Per capita

59 34 12 104

92 44 30 139

193 78

Investmentb

9

1 975

250

2 35

95 115 273

37 14

54 17

79

State as employer'

7

9 13

Labor force as % of adult populations

47

45

N/A

N/A

1,736

15,264 5,173 5,694 814 1.4 3.8

39,261 5,222 14,526 653 3.0

48,196 10,355 14,246 128,800

Government expenditures' Economic development Education Defense Pensions, social welfare Scientific research Support for agriculture

755 2,801 295 o.o6 0.3

4.9

4.0 9.9

SOURCE: China Statistical Yearbook, 1990 ed., unless otherwise stated. a Table 2.12; billion yuan at current prices. b Table 5.5; fixed assets of state-owned units, billion yuan. • Table 4.1; ratio of state employees to total workforce. d Table 4.3. • Tables 6.7, 6.9, 6.10, 6.11; billion yuan.

production teams making use of whatever material inputs were at hand, no matter how unsophisticated technologically. The backyard furnace for making steel became the symbol of the Great Leap Forward. Of course, it threw the economy into chaos, as shown in the figures for 1962. Some momentum was retained because the capital-intensive Sovietmanaged industrial development projects were permitted to go forward at the same time. Mao intended to put to use the millions of underemployed peasants by having them construct dams, reservoirs, canals, and highways by manual labor alone. During the 196os the famous Dazhai Brigade was made a model for all to emulate; eighty-odd peasant households, armed of course with Mao's thoughts, were said to have achieved prodigious results in leveling hills, filling valleys, and laying water pipes to raise fish in ponds and irrigate orchards. By 1962 the Great Leap was

288

China Table 6-4. Growth of Chinese production, 1950-1975 1950

1962

1970

1 975

Agriculture Power of agricultural machinery' Tractor-plowed areab Grain produced'

0.2 136 164

7.6 8,284 160

N/A N/A 24o

118 (1978) 40,670 (1978) 285

Industrial production Cloth" Coal' Crude oil' Pig iron' Steel' Motor vehicles'

2.5 43 0.2 1 1 —

2.5 220 6

9.4 482

9 7 10

9.2 354 31 21 .17 87

Transports Railways Highways Pipelines

22 1 oo —

35 464 0.2

41 637 1.2

46 784 5.3

77 24 24 140

SOURCE: China Statistical Yearbook, 1990. NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained. a At year end in billion watts; table 9.12. b 1,000 hectares; table 9.17. • Million tons; table 9.30. d Billion meters; table 10.27. e Million tons; table 10.27. " Thousands; table 10.27. • Thousand km; table 12.2.

abandoned despite such feats and Mao confessed publicly to having been wrong. Bureaucratic planning was restored and economic growth resumed, only to be disrupted once more after the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, which marked the victory of the cult of "mobilization" led by Lin Biao over the "organizational" approach of Liu Shaoqi. In rural China the CCP proceeded gradually in socializing agricultural production. It began with a land reform in which large landlords were expropriated (and often killed) and owner-farming encouraged. Farmers who rented some land from small landlords were encouraged not to pay their rent. A little later, cooperatives were created and separate peasant households combined into mutual-aid teams working under CCP direction. Eventually, larger "collectives" took their place. Throughout, material incentives for production were discouraged in favor of promot-

289

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

ing and rewarding selfless conduct for the benefit of all. By 1958, as part of the Great Leap Forward, the "commune" became the basic unit of rural life; there were eventually 26,000 communes containing about 5,000 households each, tilling all land—now owned by the state—in common and responding only to the direction of the CCP. The individual farmer-owner and the spontaneously organized work brigade had disappeared by 196o. The communist stage, said the CCP, had been attained without detailed planning, by peasants acting in the spirit of Maoist thought. Even when the Great Leap was abandoned in the industrial sector, the commune system continued to dominate the rural scene until the free market reforms of the 198os. Though they were supposed to foster China's food self-reliance, the communes never managed to produce enough grain to free the country from the need to import food or to avoid famine. Mao's foreign policy. The PRC began life by adopting the policy of "leaning to one side," of allying with the Soviet Union to better combat American imperialism and bring about the return of Taiwan and the final elimination of the GMD. The PRC received technological and scientific help from Moscow in the weapons field, including the technology to enrich uranium. Some think that the PRC went to war with the United States in Korea in 195o in order to show solidarity with the Soviet Union rather than because Beijing feared an American attack. Moreover, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai carefully built up close ties with communist parties in other developing countries, especially in Asia. Beginning in 1955, he identified China closely with the nonaligned movement even though the alliance with Moscow was still intact, stressing China's special experience with anti-imperialist liberation. After 196o this stance was to claim for China a special role in combating all versions of "great-power chauvinism" and in entering actively the international competition of giving economic aid and revolutionary advice to newly independent African countries. The break with Moscow became final in 196o when Mao declared the Soviet communists to be revisionists and social imperialists. The apparent reason for the ideological turnaround was the Soviet decision to seek active peaceful coexistence with the West and to downplay world revolution. As early as 1959 Khrushchev had seemed to side with India in the Himalayan border dispute. Mao's main concern seemed to be to retake Taiwan and eliminate the GMD regime there as well as assume the Chinese seat in the United Nations held by Taiwan, developments that called for the acquiescence of the United States. By 1964 China had succeeded in fashioning its own nuclear weapons despite the rupture with Moscow. Even though Beijing 290

China supported Hanoi in the Vietnam War, PRC help was not nearly as strong as Moscow's, and Mao, against the advice of some his colleagues, refused Moscow's offer of a united front to aid North Vietnam. In a stunning reversal of positions, Mao in 1971 accepted Richard Nixon's initiative to reestablish diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing and to give the PRC the Chinese United Nations seat. By 1972 Washington and Beijing had become tacit allies. Deliberate Self-Destruction Averted between 1966 and 1976 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution came close to destroying the nation-state created by the CCP, as the party itself was subjected to enormous battering. The movement originated in the fears of Mao, PLA chief Lin Biao, and many other communist leaders that too many party officials had become cautious, bureaucratic, capitalistically minded, and no longer committed to the revolutionary ideal. The movement eventually became an orgy of attacks on officials, teachers, and cadres, resulting in many deaths and the banishment of 12 million people to "labor with the masses in the countryside." Public shaming for misconduct—a very Confucian technique—became the standard method for persecuting one's opponents. The movement had no clear positive purpose at all. It was designed to purge China of three evils: Westernism, feudalism, and bourgeois ways. The Western ideas and institutions to be purged were systematic and hierarchical thought and organization. The feudal notions concerned traditional China, including Confucianism, which students had attacked since the May Fourth days; it seems that a great many "feudal" ways had survived despite forty years of battering. "Bourgeois" ways included nonsocialist economic practices; the Red Guards and their sponsors—later known as the Gang of Four—complained that too much market-based exchange still existed, that not all the means of production were under state control, and that the system of wages was insufficiently egalitarian. Protesting against CCP leaders who did not wish to make the break with Moscow permanent, the Cultural Revolutionaries wanted to create an integral sense of nationalism, an identity that owed nothing either to the West or to the China of the past. But, as we saw, the Cultural Revolution was not permitted to stop the Sino-American rapprochement; nor was it allowed to interfere seriously with the slow and cautious acquisition of Western science and technology. The basis of the nation-state had been built between 1945 and 196o; why and how it survived the Cultural Revolution must now be shown. 291

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Institutionalization and Deinstitutionalization The apparent successes of the totalitarian mode of socializing people into becoming committed nationalists are striking the world over, but especially in China, where the culture of individualism had never been institutionalized. Yet we must be wary of accepting at face value the evidence of demonstrations of millions of young people shouting slogans of adulation for the Great Helmsman, Mao Zedong, of entire villages engaging in rituals of communist reverence for the heroic achievements of socialist labor, and of the impressive school curricula seeking to fashion the new Chinese communist persona. When these techniques work, they create a nation-state integrated on the basis of the integralist myth. But what if they don't? Our task now is to see to what extent they have worked. Richard Madsen, in his study of a Chinese village, discovered the coexistence of four distinct types of communist cadres, offering four ways of leading the peasantry into patterns of behavior consistent with communist nation-statehood. Not all these styles conform to the Maoist idea1.1.6 The moralistic revolutionary cadre alone does because he or she bases leadership of the local masses exclusively on the Maoist ideological canon and on the party apparatus as the sanctified elite. Communist "gentry," by contrast, lead by appealing to a precommunist sense of local solidarity, by dispensing patronage, but also by ignoring nationalist themes. Communist "rebels" also sidestep national themes by leading in the name of community service based on a local interpretation of communist ideals. Finally, the pragmatic technocrat leads by seeking to solve the practical problems of human welfare; if he or she does so by relying on centrally sanctioned knowledge, symbols, material, personnel, or organizations, the result contributes to nation-building and nationalist socialization. But no such contribution occurs if the effort is derived from local resources alone. Integralist national integration has a chance of winning only if the moralistic revolutionary or the right kind of pragmatist leads in the huge majority of cases. Next we study what actually occurred with respect to education, the status of ethnic minorities and religion, and the capacity of communist institutions to bring about peaceful change. Institutional flux has predominated in educational policy. "In the old society, there was a starving family who had to borrow five tou of corn from a landlord. The family repaid the landlord three years later. The greedy landlord demanded 5o percent interest compounded annually. How much corn did the landlord demand at the end of the third year?'" From the beginning, all education in the PRC, even elementary arithmetic, was 16 Richard Madsen, Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 246-57. 17 Cleverly, Schooling of China, p. 186.

292

China designed to socialize students into becoming nationally conscious revolutionaries. And yet there never was a full consensus on whether effort, dedication, and a proletarian background should count as much, or more, than academic achievement and professional competence in the formation of the new Chinese. Only Liu Shaoqi and his followers were convinced that "redness" and expertise were easily combined in schooling the young. But there was no disagreement that by age twelve all rural Chinese youngsters, in addition to basic knowledge about farming, sanitation, nutrition, and personal hygiene, should know the fundamentals of Chinese Marxism, institutions, and history, be convinced of the importance of altruistic and collective behavior, and be committed to hard work and personal sacrifice without succumbing to the sin of individualism. Naturally, they should also be convinced of the benevolence of the new society, the glory of Mao Zedong, and the evils of the GMD. Repeated internal CCP criticisms made clear that these objectives were commonly not achieved. One reason for the spotty success was the frequent change in policy. Before 1958 the preexisting urban system of secondary schools and colleges—even though it drew only on a "bourgeois" student body—was changed only by superimposing Marxist-Leninist-Maoist doctrine on the customary subjects and expanding the number of enrolled. Rural education was largely ignored except for the creation of after-work study facilities to teach basic literacy and arithmetic. Between 1958 and 1962 the expansion of academic facilities was suspended, entrance requirements eliminated or relaxed, examinations made easier, and deliberate efforts made to increase the number of children of peasants and workers in secondary schools and colleges. The assignment of college students to predetermined professions was intensified; enrollment in secondary schools was deemphasized. The CCP was determined not to be saddled with idle adolescents and unemployed college graduates. In 1962 the pendulum swung back to quality control and academic rigor over "redness" and correct background. Confucius was cited with approval and publicly celebrated. Marshal Chen Yi praised professional specialization and condemned excessive propaganda in schools. "Confucius was so absorbed in reading that he forgot to eat. . . . Dong Zhongshu did not look at the garden for three whole years. . . . Boddhidarma faced a wall for nine years. We should learn from their spirit in searching for knowledge," he said.'8 By 1966 all this changed once more toward "redness," resulting in the closing of most secondary and tertiary schools for four or five years; it is estimated that during these years the loss in specialized training totaled 18

Ibid., pp. 152-53. 293

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

150,000 engineers, 1 oo,000 teachers, and 50,000 physicians. Work was exalted over study at all levels of schooling, examinations were abolished, entrance requirements abandoned. Teachers and masses were to be one. Yet somehow the past had a tendency to reassert itself. We know that the deinstitutionalization of education during the Cultural Revolution was to be reversed. Complaints about "careerism" among cadres and students resurfaced often. Mao launched a major educational rectification movement among rural cadres even before 1966 because creeping feudalism and capitalism was rife in some communes. The press told parents to advise their children to study real subjects, not communist propaganda. The demand that academic achievement be respected in admitting students to middle schools and colleges kept reappearing even during populist periods. Some bourgeois and feudal habits evidently need more than fifty years to die out even when buffeted by totalitarianism. Ethnic minorities and organized religion do not imperil rationalization. In 1989 non-Han peoples accounted for only 8 percent of the population, or 67 million persons. Each group has its own autonomous area and enjoys a certain amount of self-government by virtue of that status. As a result of heavy internal migration, however, only 44 percent of the population of these areas is actually accounted for by non-Han peoples. They total more than half the population only in Tibet, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Sichuan, and Hunan. Unlike the GMD and the Manchus, the CCP has not overtly sought to sinicize the minorities (except in Tibet). China is declared to be a multinational unified state in which no ethnic group is entitled to full national self-determination but each is entitled to full respect for its culture on the basis of its contribution to liberation from imperialism. Because the Han are declared to be culturally more developed than the others, they have the special obligation to help minorities develop rapidly. Industrial production has increased seventy times in the autonomous regions since 1952, agricultural output ten times. The land reforms and consolidations forced by the CCP on peasants in most of China were applied much more slowly in autonomous areas. At first the local power structures were often respected. Some tension was created by the adoption of Mandarin as China's official language and the language of instruction in schools, but not more than in Han areas where Mandarin is a foreign tongue. The government used pinyin to create scripts in areas where local languages lacked a written form. Local resistance among Han compelled the abandonment of two separate efforts at language standardization, the attempt to use pinyin romanization instead of characters and the introduction of simplified characters. There apparently has always been some disagreement within the CCP 294

China

on how rapidly to introduce socialism and how much cultural autonomy to tolerate. Minority cadres have often complained of being ignored by their Han colleagues. Moreover, especially in Muslim areas, they are often seen as traitors by their fellow nationals. From 1957 on, Mao advocated rapid assimilation, that is, sinicization. The CCP progressively downgraded local cultural autonomy as an important goal as literacy and modernization campaigns were used to spread communist socialization to the minorities. Past discrimination by Han was interpreted as class conflict, not ethnic strife. The relationship between minorities and kindred groups in neighboring countries was downplayed in favor of stressing alleged positive historical ties between Han and non-Han. Did it work? Evidently, these measures rationalized Han-minority relations everywhere except in Tibet and Xinjiang. Tibet remains a conquered colony of the PRC; in Xinjiang the local Muslim peoples insist on retaining close ties with their Central Asian cousins; they sometimes rebel. These distinctly anti-PRC sentiments overlap with religious disaffection. The CCP attitude toward Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam differs from the position taken with respect to Taoism and various folk religions that mix Taoism, Buddhism, and local cults. The "global" religions are recognized as "patriotic" cultural forces even though the CCP is, of course, committed to militant atheism. As long as their leaders accept the legitimacy of the state, refrain from criticizing its policies, and sever their ties with non-Chinese organizations, they are left alone. The foreign ministry even makes use of them when special links with Muslim or Buddhist states are being fostered. Sorcerers, soothsayers, magicians, Taoists, and other purveyors of feudal "superstition," however, are persecuted and local shrines are destroyed, unless their practices can be justified as traditional medicine, which is encouraged. The repeated need felt by the CCP to denounce folk religions proves that they continue to flourish along with many other noncommunist beliefs and practices. The reluctant admission that other religions continue to have appeal despite fifty-odd years of Marxist indoctrination and that some minorities are self-aware enough to require repression suggests that alternating educational policies and uncertainties over what constitutes the true "new Chinese" have not succeeded in fashioning an accepted Marxist civil religion in China. Is organization or ideology to be the principle of rationalizationr9 The PRC seemed to be destroying itself because, unlike other totalitarian entities, it came to stress ideology over organization. But, according to Franz Schurmann, the alternative may have been to give up on the revolution. 19 Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).

295

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Political rationalization derived from ideological fervor guarantees enthusiasm, commitment, and hard work to advance toward the desired utopia, but it is unlikely to deliver the concrete results the utopia assumes: steady increases in personal welfare, reliable performance of public services, and effective national defense. Rationalization based on organizations, even totalitarian ones, promises the desired concrete results but makes them dependent on bureaucratic routine, clientilism, expertise, and other evils associated in China with bourgeois institutions. In principle the CCP was to be an organization inspired by ideology, thus bridging the chasm between the two formulas. Mao's repeated lashing out against organizations, including the CCP, suggests that the party was perceived as failing to function as that bridge. Many young people got disgusted with the CCP before 1966 because they felt that favoritism, clientilism, and indifference among cadres compromised the principle of revolutionary virtue and the utopia of eventual communism to which they remained loyal. They became the Red Guards and the shock troops of the Great Leap Forward. But the organizational and practical failings of the Cultural Revolution, in turn, destroyed their faith in Marxism. The party excelled in the use of mass organizations to energize its repeated campaigns for production or ideological breakthroughs. But it also denied these organizations any autonomy whatever. The CCP feared organizational stability not under its direct control; it distrusted rationalization based only on the organizational formula. Yet it, too, became the victim of ideologists who disdained the party as an overly organized entity. Neither ideology nor organization produced rationalization under these conditions of dissensus. Participation via mass-based organizations begs the issue of the extent to which "interest" is seen as legitimate in PRC moral thinking. The fate of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions illustrates the problem. The ACFTU was seen by its leaders and its membership as contributing to the revolution by increasing production and ensuring the welfare of its members; but it was seen by ideologues as exclusively an instrument for waging class struggle and hence could not enjoy autonomy from the CCP; autonomy might tempt unionists to seek protection for their interests. By 1957 the ideologists had won that battle even as the CCP itself was being destroyed by purges. Radical ideologists favored more reliance on the masses, even if common people had to be roused by the proper agitprop methods; others preferred reliance on existing organizations. They also disdained established decision-making procedures inside the CCP when they were seen to conflict with ideological imperatives. Voluntary organizations took the place of party organs between 1966 and 1975, but they excelled more in shouting than in accomplishing practical tasks of governing. Established 296

China organizations were criticized as defending their particularistic interests, not fighting for the revolution. Interest was bad, participation was good. But participation for what purpose? This conflict even penetrated the PIA. The army became the "model" communist organization in 1963 because it combined "correct" ideological fervor with heroism, dedication, and some degree of efficiency in getting practical jobs done. It made itself the major advocate of Mao's views on everything. Political indoctrination became an essential part of military training. Yet service in the PLA is much coveted; the number of volunteers is so large that conscription is very rarely used. Despite the ideological exhortation, it is clear that military service is seen by peasants as a means to leave the village and become upwardly mobile. Commanders preserved regional autonomy from Beijing and managed to isolate and protect many industrial and research sites from the Red Guards. Many objected to the politicization of the troops. In insisting, after Lin Biao's death, on the need for technological upgrading and the obsolescence of people's war, they fought ideology by bringing back the expert. In short, in the long run, organization triumphed over ideology in the PLA. Adapting, Learning, and Being Stupid, 1949-1976 Totalitarian regimes systematically lie about their economic performance and about many other things. Analysts who accept at face value the statistics and verbal claims of these regimes wind up exaggerating the degree of rationalization achieved. That is one reason the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe took everyone by surprise. Worse still, they fool themselves into believing such polities are well integrated because there are barely any discernible expressions of dissent, of unhappiness, of demands for different modes of decision making and popular participation. In short, we all made the mistake of overestimating the legitimacy enjoyed by communist states. I suggest that we can sensitize ourselves to this danger by watching whether any of the following events occur regularly. If they do, then the leadership enjoys far less legitimacy than its propaganda claims. Does the mass line contain ambiguities that justify just about any course of action? Yes. Do leaders habitually use vituperative language to characterize other leaders who disagree with them? Yes. Do leaders generally profess distrust of intellectuals, literature, art, cinema, and academic learning? Yes. Is the language of party debate rife with the rhetoric of "struggle" (in contexts that could just as accurately be described in other ways)? Yes. Is there only one valid national myth and all others are stigmatized as revisionist filth? 297

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS Table 6-5. China: Indicators of rationalization 1900

Political succession Education consensual State/church relations Civil religion Minority cultures Official language Income redistribution Participation, workers Participation, farmers Taxes paid Foreign policy Fighting wars Conscription Peaceful change Administrative cohesion Legitimacy

no no yes no yes yes no no no no yes no N/A no no no

Total (%)

27

1925-49 no some some some yes yes no no no no yes some no no no no 31

1950-66 1967-80 1990-99

some no yes some some yes yes some some yes some yes yes yes some yes?

some no yes no some yes yes no no no yes N/A yes no no yes?

no some yes no some yes yes yes some some yes N/A yes some some some

72

47

63

Yes. Is there only one leader who has the genius always to see the truth? Yes. A look at table 6-5 shows that during the period here discussed China was more rationalized than at any other time in its modern history. Yet each and every one of the questions just posed must be answered positively for that period. Maybe our score still hides overconfidence in Chinese sources. In any event, in Mao's China before the Cultural Revolution there was agreement on the marginality of religious institutions, the national language, peaceful change procedures, the need to introduce equality in living standards, and the overall legitimacy of the regime. The army fought valiantly against the United States, India, and the Soviet Union. Some factions and groups questioned the majority's belief in the political succession suggested by Mao, the Maoist version of Marxism as a civil religion, the superiority of Han culture, CCP domination of mass organizations, and the foreign policy of quarreling with Moscow; but questioning did not become opposition. Outright disagreement within the party persisted only in the field of education; administrative cohesion and the abil298

China ity to collect taxes left a great deal to be desired. Apparently, the frequent reversals in policy and the unceasing exhortations to struggle, even if the purpose of the new struggle seemed to negate yesterday's, did not shake the regime's legitimacy seriously. We know the virulence of the Cultural Revolution. If things had been going as smoothly as our score suggests, the eruption of mass hatred on the scale we saw could not have been possible. What could have been wrong all along? The answer is that at no time did the institutional system of the PRC allow for learning as we use the term: the role of Mao's charisma and of the CCP's ideological monopoly meant that there was no room for leaders to publicly question the adequacy of revealed causeeffect and ends-means relationships. These were hallowed by the Thought of Mao Zedong and not subject to dispassionate analysis or truth tests. The adequacy of a given policy and of the line justifying it were determined by quite different criteria. At best, piecemeal adaptation—the choice of new means to attain the same end—was practicable. Richard Madsen distinguished between three modes of moral discourse in China for determining changes in policy: (1) The Confucianist appeals to rules of conduct discernible by the exercise of reason seen in the social context that actually exists; in rural China this ethic continues to be important in the resolution of local conflict. (2) The Liuist looks to the consequences of an act on the basis of empirical analysis. Disagreement is resolved by examining the pertinent data and choosing the course of action found to be most efficacious; in post-Mao China this approach was epitomized by Deng Xiaoping. (3) The Maoist seeks to understand the difference between right and wrong by looking to an authoritative leader or canon. Of the three, only the Liuist style is consistent with true learning, and then only if Marxist theory is taken with a great many grains of salt. Before the Cultural Revolution legitimacy in rural China may have been preserved by a judicious mixture of the Confucian and Maoist styles. The victory of the Maoist way removed this source of legitimacy because unrestrained rage replaced the adaptive behavior shown after the failure of the Great Leap Forward, as well as in the benign reformism authorized by the finding that some failure constituted a mere nonantagonistic contradiction within a class or between allied classes. It must be stressed that even during the see-saw between institutionalization and the destruction of institutions, some lessons were learned by the surviving experts among scientists, engineers, and economists who planned the science/technology sector. They learned that China used the wrong foreign country as its reference: the Soviet Union was not a good exemplar; Japan was probably much better if you wanted to become 299

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS autonomous in matters of science and technology. Soviet equipment was bad, American and western European was much better. You cannot catch up technologically if your exemplar is a moving target; you have to have the capacity to innovate continuously. The lesson learned was that the Marxist analysis of growth was wrong and that a Western mode of knowing had to be substituted for it. By the middle 197os these kinds of lessons were being learned by a few, who were to become China's rulers after Mao's death. These people learned that a particularistic interest professed in and by a modernizing bureaucracy is better than a vague ideological commitment to the general will in producing more goods of higher quality that the outside world might even wish to buy. They also learned that China must do more than ally itself with all the world's victims of imperialism, with those who have suffered as China had, if it wishes to modernize like Japan. They realized that although it is morally gratifying to be a victim, it is even more pleasant to be one of the reviled superpowers. CHINA LEARNS TO MODERNIZE BUT IS IT RATIONALIZED? The Totalitarian Market Economy: Summary Table 6-5 suggests that China is on the way to becoming a rationalized nation-state but it is not yet there. Since 1977 the PRC has experienced an economic miracle thanks to the sharp reduction of efforts to plan economic development and the reintroduction of private farming. It continues to be a repressive totalitarianism rooted in a revived CCP, willing—as we learned repeatedly—to use force to maintain control. The repression of the religious movement Falun Gong and the Democratic Party demonstrated the existence of widespread dissatisfaction among the intelligentsia. The concurrent existence of inflation, lack of coordination, illegal emigration, and ailing state-owned industries suggests that markets do not yet function as they should. Hence rationalization—economic as well as political—remains in doubt. The mixed economy. Official statistics suggest a very respectable economic growth between 1966 and 1976; it appears, however, that true industrial and agricultural growth was just barely getting back to the levels of 1958 because of the Maoist reliance during these years on the principles of minimizing the dependence of any production unit on outside help in order to foster dignity and self-respect. Planning was also disrupted, and material incentives to workers and reliance on experts were discouraged as smacking of capitalism. The Chinese call economic events after 1978 "socialist economic system reform with Chinese characteristics" to distinguish it from both 300

China

Maoist and post-1989 east European practice and to minimize the "capitalist" direction of the change.2° For agriculture, the "Household Responsibility System" restored private control, if not ownership, after 1982, when the communes were broken up. Family households now grow and sell their produce at market prices after delivering a fixed quota and taxes to the state. They are free to arrange for such collective activities as they choose. The average annual rate of growth since 1978 has been stupendous: 9 percent overall, 6.7 percent for agriculture, 8.7 percent for forestry, and 9.4 percent for husbandry. Growth rates of individual commodities were equally high. Although rural incomes overall have risen sharply, inequalities among types of tenants and provinces have also increased. The deflationary forces associated with the Asian economic crisis of 1998-99 depressed living standards appreciably. Urban unemployment went to lo percent of the workforce, rural unemployment to 3o percent. Absolute poverty rose to 20 percent of the total population; the government abolished free health care but had to raise unemployment insurance. Consumers, fearful of the future, saved rather than spent, leading to the overproduction of consumer goods. The balance between state- and privately owned businesses remained uncertain. Moreover, since 1993 there has been much instability in how stateowned industry ought to be reformed. Rather than sell off state-owned plants, the government first authorized managers to assume unrestricted control over their enterprises and encouraged them to specialize and deepen the intra-industry and inter-industry division of labor. After 1984 central planning was very much relaxed, though prices remained subject to some control. Managers were also entitled to retain a part of their profit and their output to dispose of as they chose instead of delivering everything to the state. Hence this excess found its way into a free market. Individuals and smaller enterprises were authorized to trade in anything they could buy or manufacture free of state control. They could act 20 This section relies on the following works: Carl Riskin, China's Political Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Wesley R. Young, "China, the World Bank, and the Global Technological Revolution" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1991); John Gittings, China Changes Face (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Susan L. Shirk, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Kenneth G. Lieberthal and David M. Lampton, eds., Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds., Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992); Andrew Nathan, Chinese Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991); Jiann Hsieh, China's Policy toward Minority Nationalities in an Anthropological Perspective (Honolulu: East-West Center, 1984); Harold K. Jacobson and Michael Oksenberg, China's Participation in the IMF the World Bank, and GATT (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990).

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Table 6-6.

1981 1984 1989

China: Retail sales, by source (%) State units

Collectives

Private

8o 46 39

15 40 34

14

5

27

SOURCE: China Statistical Yearbook, 1989. as individuals or organize themselves into collectives free of CCP supervision. Thus a great deal of free enterprise came into being alongside the state-owned economy. During the 199os Beijing decided to allow the sale of some state-owned plants to workers' cooperatives. Other plants were reorganized as parastatal firms. Moreover, operating subsidies were withdrawn and firms were instructed to sink or swim on their own, irrespective of ownership. The state was to concentrate what help it would continue on five hundred firms considered able to withstand international competition. State banks began to charge interest on loans to enterprises; material incentives for workers were emphasized again; expertise was rehabilitated and rewarded. Private enterprise became particularly prominent in the service and retail sales sectors, as shown in table 6-6. By 1997, however, China saw protest rallies of workers made unemployed by these measures. Deng and his colleagues were particularly interested in reviving foreign trade and investment in order to accelerate industrialization and make China a major industrial power by 2000. By 1984 merchandise trade per capita had increased to 5o yuan, from 16 yuan in 1975 and 5 yuan in 1957. Merchandise trade amounted to 16.8 percent of aggregate product in 1984; although this ratio is low in comparison with most other countries, in 1977 it had been 9.2 percent. Foreign firms were invited to invest in China, either outright or in the form of various alliances with Chinese firms (state-owned and private). Special Economic Zones were established in which foreign firms enjoyed special tax and profit repatriation rights. Stress was placed on the rapid introduction of technologies not available from indigenous sources, and attracting foreign direct investment was a key method for doing this. In 1999 the government and Party made a public commitment to intensify privatization and the expansion of free markets, apparently an admission that the attempt to revitalize the state-owned sector had failed. Private business, for the first time, was to be put on a level of equality with the state-owned sector in terms of access to loans, stock markets, and state 302

China services. The inflow of foreign technology and capital into publicly owned enterprises had been unplanned and uncoordinated, a state of affairs made worse by the fact that the highly inefficient public sector took 7o percent of new investments in 1999. China continues to be laggard in introducing clear private property rights, thus discouraging foreign investment.21 In 1988 a multipart television series entitled "River Elegy" was shown. Evoking the Yellow River, emblem of Chinese guocui, the series praised Western cultural and institutional ways over traditional Chinese ones and advocated their rapid implantation. The CCP interpreted the message as a covert attack on it because it suspected that "tradition" was being identified with communism. Given the spirit of reform in the air, observers detected the germ of a liberal nationalism in the series's message.22 One year later tanks crushed that flicker. Political Repression Continues Since the death of Mao Zedong several high-level plans for the gradual democratization of the PRC have been offered. None was implemented fully. Whenever intellectuals sought to use the media, art, and literature for the expression of heterodox views, they were ruthlessly slapped down and often punished with long periods of imprisonment. The very stance the state and the party ought to take with respect to the expression of views not sanctioned by the CCP, even though the Maoist canon was jettisoned after the purge of the Gang of Four, has been a subject of intense controversy within top decision-making circles. What agitates the inner circles of the party as well as the intellectual world is the very meaning of socialism and of democracy. How much of a market is consistent with socialism? Is the danger of imperialism over? Can Western science and technology be safely incorporated into Chinese life? Does democracy mean that one has to suffer dissent even if the dissenter is "wrong"? The 198os did not produce a consensus on these questions. It seemed, 21 There is good reason to suspect that decentralization has gone too far to allow the center to reassert full control over the economy, especially since China still lacks a legal code governing private property, thereby also putting in doubt what is "publicly" owned and who is the appropriate "public" authority. See Gabriella Montinola, Yingyi Qian, and Barry Weingast, "Federalism, Chinese Style," World Politics (October 1995): 68-73. Also Steven L. Solnick, "The Breakdown of Hierarchies in the Soviet Union and China," World Politics (January 1996): 230-36. 22 For details, see Dittmer and Kim, China's Quest, pp. 260,263. In June 1998 Zhao Ziyang and Bao Tong, officials who lost their jobs because of being "soft on dissidents," publicly demanded that the CCP apologize for its behavior at Tiananmen Square.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

however, before the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, that a degree of institutionalized politics had been achieved: Maoism was dead; a chastened party had been revived and its control over the army reestablished; efforts to recentralize authority in Beijing were being made; autonomy for mass organizations was in the air; a legal system including due process of law was to be built; the principle of life tenure for high party officials was being challenged; direct elections at the county level and below were being held; and the party was being separated from the state bureaucracy at the local level. Intermittently, anti-Party criticism was permitted publication. In some ways personal freedom was expanding as well: consumer choice was being widened, living space became more private, and sexual freedom blossomed. The number and vigilance of neighborhood committees declined. People were allowed to change employment and residence freely. Close CCP supervision of personal conduct in residences and in the workplace was watered down. Party control of "competitive" village-level elections was relaxed as election monitoring by foreign observers became routine, though no agitation for competitive elections to a national legislature was allowed; neither was any pretense that the village elections betoken a recognition of the legitimacy of specific interest representation." Perhaps most important, restrictions on family size were no longer consistently enforced, and bribes became acceptable for gaining permission to have a third child. When hundreds of thousands of young people petitioned the government by peaceful means in the spring of 1989 to reduce corruption, control inflation, and make state institutions somewhat more responsive to the demands of intellectuals, they were not challenging the communist order. Yet their actions, taken in the name of democracy, were perceived as threats by an indecisive group of elderly leaders, who eventually felt unable to compromise and called in the army to suppress the "democracy movement." The student movement, it is true, had spread to many provincial universities and had begun to acquire a following among urban workers. Since 1989 there has been no suggestion of a political opening similar to the one Gorbachev introduced in the ex—Soviet Union. The octogenarian leaders of the CCP committed themselves in 1989-90 to allow no Western-style democracy, though many favored a gradual liberalization of Party control over all aspects of life. Two potential heirs of Deng fell victim to the harder line because they were viewed as too lenient toward dissidents, even though the pro-democracy forces 23 One study revealed that the elections resulted in the overthrow of local CCP cadres in many villages in north China. Although the electoral reforms were opposed by many top leaders, they were favored by middle-level leaders interested in making reforms opposed by Beijing. A new village politics based on nonparty ties and favors has emerged. Tianjan Shi, "Village Committee Elections in China," World Politics (April 1999): 385-412.

304

China

insisted on their patriotism and loyalty in demanding reforms. Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues were determined to proceed with economic reforms exclusively.24 We must now determine whether the administrative practices associated with the economic opening are being institutionalized so that we can speak of progress toward a rationalized nation-state. Internal repression has complicated China's relations with the rest of the world, along with its nuclear and arms export policies. Western sanctions against China and continuing demands by the United States that China improve its respect for the human rights of its citizens proved annoying to the regime but ineffective. The most the CCP would concede is the release from prison and deportation of a few prominent advocates of democratic reform. Beijing insisted that the Chinese conception of human rights differs fundamentally from the West's (and from the norms of international law) because they are said to adhere to the principles of socialism and of Chinese tradition. On the whole, China began to act as the very kind of superpower Mao had always denounced. In the early 198os China decided to join the main international financial institutions and started to play a prominent role at the United Nations, usually somewhat in opposition to the West. China's eagerness to be admitted to the World Trade Organization induced the granting of trade and investment access to Western firms—quite inconsistent with lingering socialism. Beijing mended fences with Moscow, achieved a modus vivendi with Taiwan, and actively sought close relations with Japan and South Korea, while continuing to support North Korea. Yet China kept up a policy of building and testing nuclear weapons in the face of global condemnation and apparently disregarded global rules with respect to the sale of missiles and chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Moreover, China ignored strong condemnation concerning the PRC's widespread violations of human rights and repression in Tibet. China claims to be a major power and demands the respect due as such. 24 In 1999 these events repeated themselves, thus confirming the determination of the CCP, now led by Jiang Zemin, to maintain the totalitarian framework in politics. The Democratic Party, taking advantage of relaxation of CCP control, sought to organize. It was ruthlessly suppressed and its leaders jailed. A millenarian religious movement, Falun Gong, demanded the right to organize even though it professed no overtly anti-regime positions. It also was suppressed and its leaders tried for subversion. The CCP remains especially suspicious of writers, artists, computer specialists, and people in the media. Even though Jiang declared that China plans to accept the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights he also announced on December 20, 1998, that China would never adopt a Western type of government. Commentators on these event believe that some CCP leaders were especially fearful of Falun Gong because, since no one believes in Marxism any longer, religious revivals are seen as filling the ideological vacuum. Evidently there was disagreement at top Party levels on how to respond. Jiang urged that "spiritual culture," not Marxism, was the Chinese essence as he urged more modernization and private enterprise.

305

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

A Poorly Integrated Nation-State

We now have some indication of why the PRC is far from fully rationalized. What remains to be done is to spell out the degree of institutional incoherence, the hesitations about commitment to a definite content of the national myth, and the lack of reliable channels for achieving peaceful change. Institutional incoherence continues despite the post-Mao reforms. It is true that under Deng's leadership strong efforts have been made to specify a more limited role for a revived CCP, to strengthen the autonomy of enterprises, and to rationalize the bureaucracy. The fact remains that these efforts have not fully succeeded. The cult of personality has been banished from the Party. Decentralization is practiced by the state in shifting power to functional groupings, provinces, and cities; but recentralization is being attempted at the same time. The eventual outcome remains unclear. The mass organizations destroyed during the Cultural Revolution were all reconstituted. Efforts to increase popular participation and shorten the tenure of cadres in the CCP were made but did not go very far. Ideology has certainly lost ground to organization, but the question remains, Which organization? Decentralization marked by incoherence is manifest in many places. Government departments increased their autonomy and freedom from CCP supervision. But coordination among departments remains poor. Constant bargaining determines the allocation of resources, not routinized planning and analysis. A hierarchical order does not seem to exist. Students of Chinese administration hold that "fragmented authoritarianism" characterizes routine decision making in the economic sector. Everything depends on one's ability to build a coalition and to be able to offer side-payments. Decisions by majority vote are shunned in favor of a search for consensus among bureaucrats, which can take a long time in coming. The careers of administrators depend on informal ties with superiors, and the superiors always seek coalitions to ensure their own continued hold on power. Coalitional and consensus politics are often shaped by factors having little to do with the merits of the issue or the objective of having a unified policy. Active reform, though predicated on decentralization, suffers from an incoherent form of dispersed power. Competitive personalism characterizes decentralized administration and management, not clear channels of analysis, consultation, and decision. Decentralization has come so far as to impair seriously Beijing's ability to collect revenue from better-organized and active provinces and regions.25 25 Note, however, that a public opinion survey undertaken in 1990 disclosed widespread indifference to political reform and overwhelming concern with economic betterment, cracking down on crime, and the reform of bureaucratic corruption. See Andrew J. Nathan and Tianjian Shi, "Left and Right with Chinese Characteristics," World Politics (July 1996):

306

China Yet countertrends are also discernible. Although central planning is no longer practiced rigorously, Beijing is seeking to recapture some economic powers from the provinces. Coordination among functionally allied ministries is being attempted through "leading groups" of high bureaucrats. The PLA is being subjected to formal rules and procedures, not merely to personal rule; yet it remains faction-ridden between a strongly anti—United States group and a group anxious to enrich itself from the sale abroad of arms produced by the PIA-owned armament industry. Nevertheless, the PLA is being forced to privatize its industrial holdings. Moreover, the long quiescent Muslim minorities have become active again. There is an Uighur revolt in Xinjiang which has spread to Beijing in the form of urban terrorism. Full-time research centers have been created; they furnish hard data—which are often made public—to their patron ministers, thus making possible bargaining that is sensitive to clearly specified trade-offs and strengthening the center's hand against the provinces. These practices militate against the lack of institutionalization represented by fragmented authoritarianism, but by how much? The Content of China's National Myth Remains in Dispute Mao once wrote these words about the centrality of guocui for communists: Being Marxists, Communists are internationalists, but we can put Marxism into practice only when it is integrated with the specific characteristics of our country and acquires a definite national form. . . . For the Chinese Communists who are part of the great Chinese nation, flesh of its flesh and blood of its blood, any talk of Marxism in isolation from China's characteristics is merely Marxism in the abstract, Marxism in a vacuum.26 But even after 1949 Chinese intellectuals of all ideological stripes have disagreed on the content of the Chinese component of Chinese communism. Today, says Lucian Pye, "China's identity problem, which is at the core of its legitimacy difficulties, is manifestly obvious, but few in China give voice to it." Still, the following voices can be heard. Some think there is no racial identity, despite the hegemony of the 522-5o. In the 198os, surveys noted that the legitimacy of socialism was declining. Respondents answering "yes" to the question "Is love of the socialist motherland the most basic morality?": ages 18-30, 28 percent; 31-45, 38 percent; 46-6o, 46 percent; over 6o, 52 percent. Yongnian Zheng, "Development and Democracy," Political Science Quarterly (Summer 1994): 243, 245. 26 Cited in Dittmer and Kim, China's Quest, p. 254. The bulk of this section depends on material in the summary chapter by Kim and Dittmer, including the quotation from Pye, which appears on p. 246. 307

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Han over the politics, economics, and culture of the area. But Jiang Zemin invoked the ethnic-racial identity and castigated religious ties in celebrating the return of Hong Kong to the PRC. Still, others stress that the "essence" of the Chinese nation is due to its identification with the state that has existed since before the time of Confucius. Others deny this historicist basis for national identity and stress the birth of Chinese national self-consciousness in the fight against foreigners; the year 1895 is the symbolic beginning. The modern words "nationality" (minzu) and "patriotism" (aiguo zhuyi), as opposed to "people of the Middle Kingdom" (zhongguoren), date only from that time. Li Dazhao's formulation twenty years later was not much different, though he also equated the Chinese nation with the proletariat that had to defeat imperialism in all colonized countries, a formulation later taken over by Mao. The Korean War was the opportunity to give living proof to this doctrine almost as the PRC was being created. In the post-Mao world these definers of identity ring hollow to Chinese intellectuals. There has been constant fluctuation in core symbols different groups claim as identity markers. Some say that they identify with the Han nation and its "true" state, not with the communist tyrants and their party state. Others continue to identify the party with the state and the nation. But all seem uncertain whether the mission of that state is to perfect Chinese socialism or Chinese democracy, or become a modern industrial nation unlike those of the Third World. Efforts to make elections representative of the actual diversity of opinion were given up after 1982 as "disruptive," though trade unions apparently were really given some autonomy to speak for workers. The southeastern coastal provinces have shown more interest in ties with the outside world than has Beijing. Their intellectuals have stressed modernity and cosmopolitanism at the expense of Chinese traditions. When the Dalai Lama asks for an autonomous Tibet, not independence, Jiang Zemin does not deny it outright. During the Cultural Revolution the system of state toleration and supervision of the main religions was scrapped in favor of unrelenting persecution. This resulted in the growth of private worship. Deng reverted to the earlier policy, fearing private worship as possibly seditious and preferring state supervision of religions. This commitment explains the repression of Falun Gong. In any event, the CCP seems to concede that the roots of religion in China are too deep to allow for the final suppression of clerical institutions.27 The question of how democratic that nation-state ought to be is at center of the identity crisis. Of those who dispute the legitimacy of the party 27 See the chapters by Lynne White and Li Cheng, and by Merle Goldman, Perry Link, and Su Wei in ibid., pp. 125-93. See also Merle Goldman, "Religion in Post-Mao China," Annals 483 (January 1986) : 146-56.

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state, some stress the individual and others society as the building blocks of the nation. Two core tendencies emerged after 198o among intellectuals, each enjoying some support, but never full endorsement, by the unstable and doubt-ridden CCP leadership. One—the New Left or Neo-Conservatives—wanted to stifle any thought of democratization and insisted on the unity of state, society, and Party. It was sharply opposed to Westernization and wanted to keep the economic reforms within a recognizable socialist framework. Much of the support for the New Left came from returned technocrats trained abroad and disillusioned with the West. The other tendency eventually embraced the "civil society" as the savior of China. In sharply opposing "good" Chinese society to "bad" communist state and Party, this group seeks political liberalization while retaining its nationalist credentials.28 Whatever nationalist sentiment the student revolt of 1989 may represent, it was not the liberal-democratic kind. The hundreds of thousands of university students who demonstrated in Tiananmen Square and in other cities, supported by workers in some places, at no time denounced communist or Marxist versions of Chinese nationhood. On the contrary, they sought to present themselves as pure Marxists, protesting against the they found in post-Mao China in the form of widespread nepotism, favoritism, and clientilism. They appealed to the heroic figures of the Yan'an period, to Mao himself, as symbols of a purer CCP of people dedicated to the welfare of the masses. While demanding freedom of expression, the students rejected majoritarian decision making, accommodation, or the legitimacy of permanent negotiation among organized interests. They presented themselves as organic representatives of "the masses," reminiscent of the Rousseauan general will. Some interpreters view the movement as being in the tradition of the loyal mandarin seeking redress of the peasants' grievances in the form of a respectful petition to the court. Students saw themselves as latter-day mandarins whose status and rights were demeaned by monolithic CCP domination. Far from asking for democracy in the Western sense—or expressing a liberal nationalism—the students represented an alienated form of integral nationalism containing some symbolic affinity for idealized Confucian practice. "corruption "

28 These views are explained in detail as the "new nationalism" by Zheng Yongnian, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China, an unpublished manuscript shown to me by Allen S. Whiting. The main source is the journal Strategy and Management, in which many slightly dissident intellectuals publish. The CCP prefers the term patriotism to nationalism, which it equates with disloyal anti-state activity by ethnic minorities. The term was explicitly developed to counter the "new nationalist" arguments put forward by the New Left and Neoconfucian writers. Zheng makes clear that both schools are anti-Western and very concerned with protecting China against alleged Western slights to China's rightful place as a great power. 309

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The national myth remains murky and disputed. Yet certain steps toward liberalism are evident. CCP domination over all organizations is no longer accepted as legitimate by many; neither is the "mass line." Ironically, "civil society" has been strengthened in the sense that traditional foci of solidarity—family, clan, native place, early school and career friends—once more became important to people after the partysanctioned foci were discredited during the Cultural Revolution. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Taoism ceased being targets of persecution, and they too were again finding favor as positive symbols even though it may well be that the toleration is merely a tactic used by the CCP the better to spot and control religious organizations. Maoist egalitarianism is denounced as incapable of producing prosperity. Industrious workers must be rewarded and lazy ones punished to make sure prosperity comes to China; only after it does should one think again of egalitarianism. Compared with the last seventy years, the emphasis is certainly on discouraging ideological thinking. It is hard to spot the Chinese elements in "socialism with Chinese characteristics" because the classic, though disputed, stages of evolution to communism have been forgotten. The struggle against global imperialism may be a thing of the past. The logic of one global market seems compelling to many who think that China should participate in it, that socialism and capitalism must cooperate with each other. But none of these changes diluted the sense of outrage engendered by events seen as insulting to China's position as a great power. Mass demonstrations, not all engineered by the authorities, broke out when U.S. bombs struck the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The United States was blamed for Taiwanese threats to declare independence. China offered Serbia financial assistance to offset the West's intervention. Refusal to admit China to the World Trade Organization without significant economic concessions was considered part of a conspiracy to humiliate China. Jiang joined Boris Yeltsin in declaring solidarity against foreign intervention in civil wars. The Chinese air force began a program of modernization designed to offset American naval superiority in the Taiwan Straits while the government strongly protested plans for a joint U.S./Japan/South Korea/Taiwan missile defense system. The nation-state again lacks a civil religion. Though shaped by totalitarian repression and manipulation, the PRC did have a civil religion—the Thought of Mao Zedong—before 1976. It lacks such a consensus on basic values and goals today, even though social mobilization and modernization are proceeding very rapidly. Moreover, there is again a consensus on merit and achievement in the field of education, on expertise in science, economics, and technology. What matters even more, however, are the national issues that once commanded a consensus but no longer do. 310

China The status of non-Han minorities is more firmly defined in the constitution of 1982 (the fourth of the PRC's constitutions) than ever before. Their autonomous areas are guaranteed all the usual rights of cultural autonomy and even a degree of administrative distance from Beijing. Chinese Marxism assigns great historical staying power to ethnonationalism. As Mao said, "It is class that withers first, then the state, and finally the nation." The CCP felt it had to put up with "the nation" until full communism was attained. But, as we saw, the CCP in the 198os stopped believing in that stage and also cut back, apparently, on its earlier policy of deliberate sinicization. However, encouraging ethnic autonomy has produced the unintended consequence of making members of minorities, especially Muslims, more conscious of their separate identity than they had been before. The more their members were officially recognized by the state, the more demands they made of the state, though none except the Tibetans and Uighurs asks for self-determination. Yet it is clear that assertions by minorities of their separate identities wax and wane in terms of what benefits or drawbacks such assertions imply. Since 1982 they have been rewarded, to the detriment of a common Chinese civil religion. "Deng's message is clear: economic reform, yes; political reform, no. So long as you make no move that could threaten the highest levels of leadership, you are free to make money."2° Chinese intellectuals increasingly question the legitimacy of the political system built on that premise, though they do not agree on what could take its place. Everyone deplores the rise of crime and selfish behavior and the lack of moral content in educational policy. As elite culture fragments, there is a strong revival of folk cultures with a distinctly premodern flavor. Those who are busy deconstructing the Yan'an mythology of the mass line and the proletarian nation have no substitute civil religion to offer. Moreover, it appears that the Chinese political culture is not hospitable to a liberal civil religion. In what may be the first methodologically sound survey research study ever conducted in China, a sample of almost three thousand people was questioned in 1990.10 The attributes of citizenship associated with liberalism did not score well. Only 23 percent thought local government influences their lives; unlike the situation in the West, in China the level of identification of one's life with the work of the national government does not vary sharply with education; the sense of personal efficacy with respect to national affairs is lower than in any Western country; those with higher education expect to receive more 29 Perry Link, "China's 'Core' Problem," Daedalus (Spring 1993): 189. The entire issue is called China in Transformation; this section depends heavily on contributions found there. 30 Andrew J. Nathan and Tianjian Shi, "Cultural Requisites for Democracy in China," in ibid., pp. 95-124.

3

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

favorable treatment from the government; the better educated in China are less tolerant of dissident political views than elsewhere, and the illeducated even more so. The more educated made efforts to inform themselves about national affairs, but when asked why they did so, they answered that this was necessary to escape persecution by the authorities! Who Has Learned What under Market Totalitarianism? Organizations "learn" when they change both their goals and the means for attaining them on the basis of systematic analysis informed by the available consensual knowledge; they merely "adapt" when they change the means for attaining stable ends. But change can also come about merely by the exercise of shrewdness, being impelled by perceived political necessity to make use of available knowledge that would otherwise have been ignored by politicians. Post-Mao economic reforms in China display much shrewdness, a little learning, and a good deal of adaptation. In 1978 the politician aspiring to displace Mao's heir apparent, Hua Guofeng, was searching for a salient issue around which to build a coalition within the CCP that would show up Maoist economics as a failure and offer a shining alternative: free markets. That man was Deng Xiaoping, who was acting without a fully thought-out plan or a clear theory of economic growth critical of Marxism.31 However, the head of the Academy of Social Sciences, Hu Qiaomu, as well as the leading Chinese economist (also head of the main state economic planning bodies), Xue Muqiao, had such a plan. Both men represented a body of state-sponsored research centers, an epistemic community of academic economists and bureaucrats totally disillusioned with Marxist economics and committed to some kind of free market regime. How clearly they mapped the alternatives is not certain because their suggestions for a market-based economy were always couched in Marxist language that does not resemble the French- and Japanese-type indicative planning they may have had in mind.32 This confluence represents political shrewdness. It certainly made use of things other people had apparently learned, particularly the reasons for the " This entire section, including the concept of "particularistic contracting" and its basis in the career- and coalition-building dynamics of Chinese bureaucrats, owes much to Susan Shirk, Economic Reform in China, especially pp. 280-81. The material on epistemic communities was developed by Nina P. Halpern, "Policy Communities in a Leninist State," Governance (January 1989): 23-41, and "China's Industrial and Economic Reforms," Asian Survey 25 (October 1985): 998-1012. 32 The reasons for my ambivalence on this point can be gleaned from Xue Muqiao, Current Economic Problems in China (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982), and the chapters by Xue, Liu Guoguang and Zhao Renwei, and Zhang Peiji in George Wang, ed., Economic Reform in the PRC (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982).

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China failure of rigid planning. It is expressed by the choice of Zhu Rongji as prime minister, an engineer, pure pragmatist and technocrat. But that knowledge did not by itself inspire the changes. There was more evidence of sheer shrewdness. The reformers allowed the state-owned "planned" sector to exist largely undisturbed alongside the freed sectors for a long time. This most unmarket-like decision had the immense advantage of not threatening the powerful bureaucratic forces controlling this sector and therefore not alienating them from the reforms. Abolishing the rural communes and freeing agricultural markets had occurred almost spontaneously between 1978 and 1984 without much help from Beijing because there were no powerful bureaucrats in the state apparatus to defend them. Thus the Deng leadership readily accepted the agricultural reforms. Most important, industrial and agricultural reforms have gone ahead unchecked because the leadership shrewdly, though not in conformity with orthodox market economics, avoided the creation of universal rules favoring a well-functioning market: there is no single system of free prices, no uniform tax code, no rules of competition, no norms governing subsidies and credit (except the decision to charge interest).33 "Particularistic contracting" between ministries and enterprises governs the "market," not general rules or law, thus protecting inefficient state firms from bankruptcy. Is this politically shrewd? It contains the latent dissatisfaction of the mobilized elites of managers, industrial bureaucrats, and workers; but it fosters the very corruption that caused the students to rebel in 1989 and the intellectuals to despair of China's essence. Moreover, the sharper turn toward free markets will stoke worker dissatisfaction as it pleases consumers. There is evidence of true learning as well. The very decision of Deng and his coalition to jettison the Marxist ideology that relates to planning, self-reliance, and egalitarianism is based on analysis of its failings to produce adequate growth. Relying on a coalition of reformist bureaucrats and academic economists while banning the CCP from the management of the economy follows from this decision. So does the policy of "open doorism" with respect to foreign investors and technology imports, because it is based on the recognition that self-reliance delays modernization. Pollution is now recognized as a negative externality, though it is a popularly acceptable excuse for closing factories. The banking system is being reformed and a real central bank set up without allowing the free convertibility of currency. A final example of true learning: the Deng coalition, realizing that growing urban unemployment posed a threat 13 For details about effective but unsystematic reform, see John McMillan and Barry Naughton, "How to Reform a Planned Economy: Lessons from China," Oxford Review of Economic Policy (Spring 1992): 130-43.

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to the regime, encouraged the development of individual and collective nonstate enterprises to sop it up, though possibly without fully succeeding. Some of the reforms were mere adaptations, though very salient ones. They include the deliberate deepening of the agricultural reforms after 1985 and the systematic efforts to use research centers after 1982 in working out the freeing of markets and contracting with the state enterprises following the disappointing experience with atheoretical ad hoc measures after 1978. The renewed encouragement of trade unions was thought of as a necessary means to make smoother the introduction of nonegalitarian wage and work rules. The overall learning process remains very spotty. One may wonder whether an economy that refuses to tolerate markets in some important industrial sectors is able to keep growing. There is no coherent policy regarding interest rates; the knowledge for managing the money supply is lacking; credit is given by provincial banks without central control. Hence inflation is not understood. As things stand, the lack of institutionalization prevents both effective planning and the functioning of rational markets. Nor is there systematic technocratic decision making despite the availability of the requisite knowledge community. Shrewdness continues to dominate both learning and adaptation. One thing seems certain: yong has finally triumphed over ti. Very little of the Chinese essence seems left after the regime's decision to build the Three Gorges Dam despite protests from intellectuals who deplored the implied indifference to centuries of poetry and painting celebrating a national treasure. The government was slow to respond to the arguments of ecologists and defenders of the hundreds of thousands of people being uprooted.34 The dam and its expected benefits—modernity in the crudest Western sense—have vanquished not only the techniques and institutions of tradition but also its values. China and the "Global Revolution in Science and Technology" The switch away from nonfunctional central planning is not a case of true learning because no new consensual knowledge about economic growth took the place of the discredited lore. Around 198o the PRC elite embraced "Science and Technology" (S & T) as the savior that was to open the heavenly gate to catching up with fast-growing countries. Chinese economists and philosophers were concerned not merely with the importation of equipment and the multiplication of the number 34 The government allowed Strategy and Management to publish pieces critical of the Three Gorges project. Belatedly, it prohibited lumbering in the Yangtze headwaters to prevent further erosion. The relocation of people was actively resisted by some and became the source of much dissatisfaction.

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China of factories; they realized that S & T embodies a way of thinking about how growth occurs, or could occur. And they also realized that the PRC, in order to profit from what they called the "global revolution," had to join the international network of trade, knowledge, and investment. Many realize that the revolution in electronics also implies a cognitive reordering. But does this insight represent a true act of learning? Only if it leads straight to a major redefinition of China's national interest.35 Does S & T eliminate ideology as a source of human choice, or is it merely a new ideology? These were the major events in that reordering. Technology policy before 1978 had been strictly ti-yong. heavy industrial equipment was either imported or copied from the Soviet Union, the emphasis being on steel making, and no thought was given to attitudinal, institutional, or philosophical adjustments consonant with industrialism elsewhere. The emphasis was on ideology to fashion a new culture, not on science or scientific thinking. When experts familiar with electronics and cybernetics challenged the heavy industry—based utopia with one based on cognitive criteria, they were marginalized. Maoist science and engineering was eventually challenged by a group of technocrats who survived the Cultural Revolution and triumphed in 1978. They included Su Shaozhi, Sun Yefang, Xue Muqiao, and Ye Guangyuan, later to be major actors in Deng's reforms. They were familiar with the complex economic and social modeling exercises then fashionable in the West, such as the work of Alvin Toffler, Daniel Bell, and Ilya Prigogine. At the epochal National Science Conference of 1978 they succeeded in having Marxist doctrine amended to include S & T as a "major productive force" with a logic of its own, thus breaking with the syncretist ti-yong tradition. Since that time, technology imports have skyrocketed, new ways of cooperating with Western and Japanese firms have been found, and technical training has been stepped up. Basic as well as applied research was now fostered, though this meant almost starting from scratch in many fields. By 1984 the importation of turnkey plants had become less important than joint ventures with foreign firms, coproduction and local assembly of foreign goods as well as joint research with foreign interests. Modeling economic development was being learned as electronics was officially made the core technique for making China catch up. How did science-as-process triumph over science-as-product? We have already seen that an epistemic community was at work in the transformation from Maoist S & T to current practice. The members spoke Marxist dialect but thought in terms of the Western analytic categories by means " This discussion is based entirely on Young, "China, the World Bank, and the Global Technological Revolution." 315

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

of which technological innovation as a major independent economic force had been conceptualized. They also used Western techniques derived from the electronic revolution, that is, modeling much more complex interactions among larger numbers of variables than had been handled before. It would be claiming too much to say that this community took over the decision-making apparatus for S Sc T. It certainly did not dominate economic planning and administration. But some members of the group became prominent administrators; others attained a position of inclusion in the particularistic contracting that still dominates economic development in the PRC. Whatever has been learned has by no means precluded the penchant to go for technological "fixes" in problem solving. Nor does it mean that the most advanced techniques of management science are being used to make fundamental allocative decisions. Yet the commitment to use such techniques is manifest, and training in "scientific" management is a high-priority activity. One of many manifestations of this change is the acceptance of Special Economic Zones as engines of economic progress. Maoists valued ideological purity and stressed equity as a core value; their successors value scientific expertise and point to efficiency as a central value. Maoists did not treat S & T as core physical or cognitive forces and thought of technology as culture-specific; their successors believe in the universality of S & T as energizing social progress. Under Deng and Jiang, S & T has become a historical imperative to high-speed economic growth requiring a cognitive revolution among its practitioners which Chinese consider to be very similar to the revolution they believe occurred in the industrialized countries they now seek to imitate. Hence close involvement with foreigners, for economic development purposes alone, is unavoidable. The S & T revolution and democracy. During the 198os a distinguished group of Chinese physical scientists, including Xu Liang and Fang Lizhi, took the enthusiasm for science into the realm of politics—only to be slapped down hard. They argued for the philosophic universality of scientific reasoning, thus challenging the orthodox Marxist "three laws of natural dialectics." In a debate about the inadequacy of Marxist scientific thinking, they created the "pluralist" school of Marxist philosophy, at first simply to challenge natural dialectics. Soon, however, they pushed their argument into the active advocacy of democracy. They held that science must entail democracy because both depend on reason, and that science cannot advance freely except under the conditions associated with democratic governance. Many of these scientists supported the student movement of 1989, lost their jobs, and went into exile. One wonders 316

China whether the conditions limiting freedom of scientific inquiry will lead to a repetition of these events, or whether continued state and party domination of science will allow the long-term symbiosis familiar from Soviet history without leading to the victory of democracy. After all, it was not Andrei Sakharov who undermined communist rule in Russia.36 Has true learning occurred? S & T minimally means concrete products: capital and consumer goods as well as industrial routines and institutions. It also means the kind of empirical-analytic thinking necessary for producing these goods. Post-Mao China accepts both these meanings in its policies and actions. But S & T also means a particular mode of social decision making that stresses the need for analytic techniques while recognizing that the total problematique to which they are applied keeps changing independently of the techniques as we change our minds about the values we wish to emphasize. This is S & T as cognitive self-correcting process. It is doubtful that China's leaders favor this view, and as long as they do not, they are not really learning. The fact that the World Bank trains thousands of Chinese planners in the techniques of scientific management and full project appraisal does not entitle us to claim that all prescientific demons have been banished. In addition to the prevailing nonanalytic practices of economic decision making, there are, in the words of Richard Baum, cognitive formalism, narrow empiricism, dogmatic scientism, feudal bureaucratism, and compulsive ritualism.37 None of these is consistent with science-asself-correcting-process. Science is being reified into a new dogma that takes the place of Marxism because Chinese thinkers believe there are "objective laws of economics" that apply to capitalism and to socialism, though they differ on what these laws decree. Science must disclose these laws so that unflinching appropriate action can be taken. Western microeconomics is reality. In jettisoning one intellectual straitjacket, it seems that the PRC is opting for another that, however, is not fully consensual. The current utopia calls for a society based on science and technology, but if science is to include self-examination and self-correction, it also implies democracy; of this there is no trace. S & T is not likely to rationalize the PRC.

" H. Lyman Miller, Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998). The three Marxist laws are the law of the transformation of quantitative into qualitative change, the negation of the negation, and the unity and contradiction of opposites. 37 Richard Baum, "Science and Culture in Contemporary China: The Roots of Retarded Modernization," Asian Survey 22 (December 1982): 1166-86; Richard Baum, ed., China's Four Modernizations: The New Technological Revolution (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 198o).

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China Learns to Join the World: The New National Interest The Dengists had abandoned the Maoist Three-Worlds doctrine by 1978.38 No longer was the world divided into the proletarian revolutionary forces that challenge the imperialist and hegemonic rapaciousness of the First World (including the Soviet Union), with an intermediate zone of countries able to align with either bloc. China was now seen as being different from the developing countries of Asia and Africa because it is a potential superpower. That potential is enhanced by the possibility of the hegemonic decline of Russia and the United States, a notion taken very seriously in China. Popular hatred of Japan is widespread, and the idea that Japan may again become a security threat is growing, though economic ties are booming. Since no major war had broken out among the large states, the global security environment is seen as benign; in fact, as material progress continues to occur, war is considered less and less likely. After 1985 war was seen as being avoidable through the practice of United Nations—based collective security and selective arms control. Even though China became a supporter of collective security, Beijing participates selectively in actual operations but occasionally violates UN resolutions, at least in spirit. China opposed the UN's war against Iraqi aggression.39 Even though the military budget and the size of the PLA were slashed, military R & D continued apace and so did the modernization of the armed forces. China adopted a policy of minimal nuclear deterrence; while nuclear testing continued, the buildup of warheads and missiles was curtailed. This, seen in the context of expert consensus elsewhere, is true learning. So is the recognition that the existing global environment favors China's development; therefore it is wise for China to adopt a systemmaintaining posture. These insights derive probably from the fact that nobody has threatened China since the tacit alliance with the United States, a lesson not even contradicted by the unsuccessful border war against Vietnam in 1979 which spurred the modernization program of the PLA. China's limited embrace of multilateralism also implied the abandonment of proud aloofness from international aid programs; now China has become one of the major recipients of all forms of multilateral aid. The learning is more striking still in sectors relating to the interna38 I rely heavily on Harish Kapur, ed., The End of Isolation: China after Mao (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985), especially the chapter by Friedrich Wu; Samuel Kim, ed., China and the World (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989), especially the chapters by Kim, William Feeney, and Edward Friedman; Allen S. Whiting, China Eyes Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). 39 China has been a full member of the IMF and the World Bank since 198o and the recipient of many loans. Its application to join the World Trade Organization was first submitted in 1987 but has not been acted upon yet.

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China tional political economy. Along with the acceptance of the capitalist notion of a global division of labor on the basis of comparative advantage came the embrace of the product-cycle theory of industrial development. Acceptance of that theory allowed Chinese planners to think of creating manufacturing plants in such sectors as textiles and simple consumer electronics that had already passed their high point in the developed countries. The foreign reference country first imitated—Japan—was no longer appropriate. Successor models were provided by Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, a recognition that led to the creation of the special development zones on the coast as the magnets for suitable foreign direct investments. For those not steeped in Western economic lore, the same lessons could be made legitimate by stressing the "learning truth from facts" slogan. Chinese communists have clearly changed their minds about some very fundamental aspects of their relations with foreign countries. Just how much they differ from their predecessors is shown in table 6-7. The nation's claim to historical distinctiveness is no longer the mounting of a global proletarian defense against capitalist imperialism; nobody appears to be making any kind of claim. China's proper space is the territory now occupied plus Taiwan. And the nation's global mission is self-perfection by means of a policy of "peace and development." The official tone of foreign policy discourse in post-Deng China conforms closely to the classical realist tradition in international relations theorizing. The theme of the special equilibrating role of nonaggressive great powers is prominent, as China takes its "rightful place" in the international system because it is the heir of a great civilization. The exercise of power is justified by historical and cultural longevity. "Comprehensive national power" is used as a conceptual measure of China's military and industrial progress toward great-power status. Classical realist discourse is "rational" in its insistence on matching ends with means; so is Chinese foreign policy thinking.40 But the tone of the opposition is quite different, though not effective in shaking the official position of moderation. Mass opinion, though shallow, exists; it stridently demands unification with Taiwan and control over the disputed islands in the South China Sea. It rejoiced over the reunion with Hong Kong. It is a mood that could easily be manipulated to suit the needs of an aggressive nationalism. 4° Jiang Zemin has subordinated his foreign policy to the completion of domestic economic reforms and has decided to rely heavily on cooperation with the United States in order to attain membership in the World Trade Organization, regain Taiwan, and achieve recognition of great-power status. Unlike his opponent Li Peng, who preached a policy of multipolarity in order to weaken U.S. "hegemonism," Jiang relies on American preponderance to gain Chinese objectives.

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Reject outright

1 927-45

Liu Shaoqui

Economic values and institutions; all techniques

As above

As above

Deng Xiaoping 1978-90

Jiang Zemin 1991—

As above

Very little; draw on Chinese culture

Everything from Soviet Marxism

Techniques; a few military and totalitarian institutions

What ought to be borrowed from other countries?

Mao Zedong Reject most but respect a few 1949-76

1 949-65

Distrust modern values; borrow very cautiously

Chiang Kai-shek

What should be done about core values of traditional culture?

As above

Same as Chiang Kai-shek's

As above + model for other victims of imperialism

Proletarian resistance to imperialism within China

Racial and cultural superiority based on long history

What is the nation's claim to historical distinctiveness?

Table 6-7. Changing content of Chinese official nationalisms

As above + Diaoyutai Islands; autonomy for Tibet?

As above

As above

Actual territory of PRC + Taiwan and Hong Kong

Largest extent of historical empires

What is the nation's rightful territory?

As above

Cooperatively and peacefully

Moderated after 1972

Permanent struggle against imperialism

Ambivalent; distrust

How should nation relate to others?

Very unclear

Political rule via totalitarian party; mixed economy + individual economic rights

As above

Totalitarian party rule; rights inhere in nation, not individual

Corporatist/ totalitarian vanguard party

Proper national institutions?

As above

Strength through material progress

As above

Bring about classless society everywhere

Survival, defense

What is the nation's historic mission?

China The intellectual opposition professes views best described as "sentimental syncretism." Collectively known as the "new nationalism," these views are propounded in some think-tanks and expressed in their journals. The opposition, alarmed by the "Westernization" of the Chinese system of values (consumerism and individualism are the real targets), decries domestic reforms that weaken the power of Beijing and prefers close identity with the Third World to the "leaning toward America" practiced by the government. Some of these critics even preach a return to Confucian values as the proper antidote for these trends. They also endorse the territorial nationalism of the general public. RATIONALIZATION: LIBERAL OR SYNCRETIST? The Chinese regime came close to rationalizing the polity. The syncretism of the GMD after 1927 collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions as much as from the blows of the Japanese and the CCP. Liu's Marxist integralism might have rationalized China on the Soviet model had it been given more time to play, though the fate of Soviet integralism suggests caution in regard to such a conclusion. As it happened, Mao's syncretist integralism also failed to rationalize China into a viable nationstate. In fact, had it been permitted to continue, it probably would have destroyed what was left of the polity. The Maoist combination was made to self-destruct: deliberate deinstitutionalization, ineffective economic planning, keeping the industrialized world at arm's length, preaching world revolution, and justifying the mixture with vague references to traditional Chinese virtues. These do not add up to rationalization. Does the dramatic change imposed by Deng and his successors imply a future liberal nationalism? The reformist elite rectified the economic aspect of the Maoist failure while repressing any move to transform the political order in a liberal direction. Nor is the economy consistently liberal while the country is rapidly being opened to foreign influences. China's leaders have clearly learned a great deal since the failure of Maoism. What they have learned has been translated into a more rationalized polity compared with what went before. In the meantime their program calls for efficiency as the core value in the private economy, particularistic contracting in the state sector, and integralist control from the top in politics. Yet it also features problem solving more hospitable than ever before to scientific analysis. China's foreign policy has become moderate as a result, occasionally consistent with a world order inspired by postnational liberalism, with the emphasis on multilateral institutionalization. China now sees itself as one nation among many, not a nation with a special mission. 321

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Still, given the state of the country at the time of Mao's demise, China's recovery and industrial take-off since is truly amazing. Whether through formal learning, informal adaptation, or just shrewdness, China's leaders were able to motivate their followers to behave in ways that led to great material progress, ways totally incompatible with what had been taught them before 1978. All this was achieved without a civil religion, without a national myth, while tolerating a number of serious tendencies that work at cross-purposes. Progress continues despite the increased expressions of discontent by people made unemployed, people forced to exercise individual initiative not expected of them before, people yearning for political freedom. In short, learning can take place even in a setting of ideological drift. Lowell Dittmer offers an intriguing explanation of this trend.41 He postulates that the very incentives associated with marketization also influence bureaucratic decision making. In the past, decision making factions in Party and government functioned on the basis of guanxi: interpersonal "connections" defined by loyalty to a patron which determine choice while little attention is given to the formal-rational purpose of proposed action. Under market incentives, however, he argues, decision-making patterns have already moved to a "hybrid" form of guanxi that mixes attention to formal purpose with patron-client obligations. He anticipates that further marketization will eventually lead to decision making dominated by formal purposive behavior. The locus of decision making has already shifted from factions to "policy groups" that combine guanxi with expertise and is likely to end as normal bureaucratic politics. He further thinks that this process is shaped by cycles that derive from iterative attempts at problem solving, none of which is fully and finally successful. Over time, the irreversible logic of the market will result in a formally rationalized polity lacking democracy but characterized by efficient bureaucracies. Clearly, learning will occur, though the lessons actors draw are path-dependent because they are caused by prior failure. Yet the mixture remains sufficiently beset with contradictions to cause doubt about its finality. The logic of the market-driven reforms, if they are eventually permitted to infect the state sector, begets the evolution of an ever larger number of individual and organizational actors committed to bargaining and deal making as the normal mode of decision making, instead of continuing reliance on ideological or cultural norms. As traditional norms—Marxist as well as Confucian—erode but also continue to have some appeal, such wheeling-and-dealing will be seen as "corruption." This is true especially if members of one's family and close 41 Lowell Dittmer and Yu-Shan Wu, 'The Modernization of Factionalism in Chinese Politics," World Politics (July 1995): 467-94; Lowell Dittmer, "Chinese Informal Politics," China Journal (July 1995): 1-34, especially pp. 29, 31.

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China

friends continue to benefit from traditional clientilistic ties and if particularistic contracting is used for obvious private gain. In the more typical cases of Type A rationalization the advent of instrumental motives and calculation in decision making is considered a fruitful seedbed for political liberalism, for accommodation by negotiation, voting, and judicial intervention. Given the legacy of Confucian and Marxist moral codes, such an evolution cannot be taken for granted in China. In this setting of moral uncertainty in the midst of material progress it is not surprising that Confucianism is thought by some to be staging a comeback. Some Chinese intellectuals use "Confucianism" as a term to describe what they see as a uniquely Chinese mode of reasoning. Currently, unreconstructed Maoists use it as code language to protest Dengist reforms. Others mean something else. They seem to be searching for an indigenous tradition to substitute for what they consider discredited Marxism and liberalism. Yet the details of this "neo-Confucianism" do not resemble the Sage's ideas. They call for continued industrialization but the retention of a communitarian emphasis. A new guocui is suggested, a self-confident nationalism, freed from the syndrome of "let's become strong to keep the imperialists at bay." Neither liberal nor integralist, it is vaguely syncretist in wishing to transcend the post-Mao formula of from stone to stone across the river." But as we have seen, Chinese syncretism and collective learning are quite compatible. "groping

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CHAPTER SEVEN

Russia and Ukraine

DEFYING PROCRUSTES "The history of Russian culture is all made up of interruptions, of paroxysms, of denials or enthusiasms, of disappointments, betrayals, ruptures."' Discontinuity marks the story of the emergence of the Russian nation-state, not an orderly evolutionary progression. Adherence to our typology of nation-state origins will not work unless we allow for important deviations from the stylized patterns. Did the centralized state precede the arrival of nationalism? Yes and no. Ivan III (1462-1505) began state-building by rapidly expanding the size and power of the Moscow state. But it was Peter the Great (16891725) who undertook institutional centralization by forcing modernization down the throat of a peasant society steeped in tradition. The efforts were not really successful until the reign of Nicholas I (1825-55). Did the socially mobilized but unassimilated challenge the state and seek to remake it to suit their perceived interests? Yes and no. Type A nation-state formation began only after 1905. Then, the challengers included liberal as well as syncretist nationalists; both were bested in 1917 by communists This chapter is deeply indebted to the devoted research assistance of Jeffrey Robins and Anne Clunan. Susan Sell and Rudra Sil also contributed. The manuscript was reviewed by David Lakin, George Breslauer, Steven Fish, and Keith Darden, who saved me from many mistakes but are responsible for none of the remaining ones. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Georges Florovsky, as quoted by Tim McDaniel, The Agony of the Russian Idea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 23. See Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), for an account stressing the confusion between nation and empire in the Russian mind.

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Russia and Ukraine who officially disdained all nationalism but in reality practiced the integralist variety. Did the populist challengers identify with the traditional elite culture? Many syncretists did, but the liberal and the integralist revolutionary nationalists did not. Only the communists succeeded in rationalizing the polity; their work, after 1917, would be consistent with Type A if only they had not completely destroyed the czarist state. One might argue that Type B more appropriately describes Russian nation-state building before 1905 because the core aim that inspired the autocratic builders of the would-be nation-state was protection against foreign invasion and foreign ideas. As Joseph Stalin was to tell Russians in 1931, their historical weakness in the face of attacks by Mongols, Teutonic Knights, Swedes, Poles, Turks, French, and Germans was a constant danger that had to be met by a strong state. Yet the efforts of the early Romanov czars could hardly be described as liberating "Russian national soil" from foreign rule. To confuse things further, aspects of Type C can be identified after 1917 in the efforts at secession from Russia on the part of Poles, Finns, Balts, and the peoples of the Caucasus. The mobilized elites of these nations had come to define their identities as incompatible with Russia's; but since social mobilization was more advanced among the seceders than in Russia, the case for Type C is poor. There is another fly in the ointment of typological neatness: the history of the Russian "nation" cannot be disentangled from the history of the Russian "empire."2 In almost all other cases covered in our study, first a state came into being, or a nation acquired the desire to form a state; the taste for imperialism came later to some of them. Often the imperialist venture had the effect of rerationalizing a fraying national community. In the Russian case, the acts of "liberation" from the Tatars, Swedes, Poles, and Turks were indistinguishable from acts of conquest and subjugation of alien peoples, many of whom eventually assimilated to Russian culture in terms of language and religion. The conquest of Poland, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia preceded the emergence of mass-based Russian nationalism. When such a sense of identity arose and took root after the communist victory, it was no longer easy for observers and citizens to distinguish between a "Russian" and a "Soviet" national community, or between an ethnic-genetic (russky) and a territorial-ideological-civic (rossiisky) definition of identity. And when the Soviet 2 I follow the convention established by czarist bureaucrats and by scholars in using the term "empire" to refer to the Russian and Soviet states. That term, however, is very problematic. Russia and the Soviet Union were multiethnic and multicultural entities governed by repression. Their very multiethnicity was the result of forcible annexations of territory. Unfortunately, other political entities (e.g., ancien regime France, modern Turkey, pre1991 Yugoslavia) display similar characteristics but are not called empires. Conversely, Russia and the Soviet Union have little in common with such entities as the Roman empire and the European colonial empires of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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Union broke up into its component union republics in 1991, many Russians felt that the Soviet homeland, not the multiethnic empire, was being destroyed.3 There are good reasons why mass-based nationalism made its appearance so long after serious state-building had begun. Few social institutions autonomously rooted in the uncoerced behavior and values of ordinary people ever arose in Russia, another feature that sharply distinguishes the history of Russia from that of most other cases we studied, except that of China.' All forms of public service were decreed and organized by the czars and their communist successors, not based on voluntary or spontaneous political choice, except at the village level. The Orthodox Church began as, and remained, an appendage of the state, not an independent source of ideas and organization, after it broke with Byzantium. The peasantry was bound by serfdom to the constrictions of the rural commune, the mir, which, though autonomous and internally egalitarian in some respects, is rarely cited as a source of economic, social, or political change. Education remained rudimentary until the second half of the nineteenth century. None of these conditions is compatible with Types A, B, or C. My study is dedicated to the search for the evidence of social learning that leads to the progressive rationalization of polities. To learn, for me, means to assess one's view of causality, to alter one's basic objectives in the face of failure to achieve one's initial goals. Actors who merely change their means to attain unvarying ends engage in adaptation, not learning. Czarist leaders were unable to learn; they failed to rationalize Russia. Reformist elites active between 1905 and 1917 were wracked by conflict among liberals, reformist syncretists, and traditional syncretists; they 3 Ethnicity, nationality, territorial identification, and citizenship are distinct concepts in Russian discourse with their own vocabulary. Narod (people) can connote a crowd as well as the population of a strana or rodina (homeland), thus conferring a territorial identity; but it can also evoke the emotional tie to a volk. Natsiya (nation) and natsionalnost (nationality, ethnicity) refer to a genetic-primordial identity that cannot be lost. They were and are key concepts in the attribution of identity to individuals, based on widely held stereotypes and law. Thus, Russia is a homeland for many nations (nationalities), but the collectivity can be called rossisky narod in the sense of conferring a common civic identity on all. Soviet "nationality" policy created "national republics" of various kinds for "titular" (legally designated) nations, fourteen of which (not counting the Russian Federation) became independent in 1991. However, most did not. A nation that was given its own republic did not, thereupon, necessarily claim the right to national self-determination in the sense of claiming to be "sovereign" in the international legal sense; "Republican" status does not imply independent statehood. Members of the Russian (russky) nation became the hegemonic people of the federation, but many other ethnic Russians continued to reside in the former national republics. 4 This judgment is not consensual among historians. Several stress what they see as extensive peasant self-government in areas remote from urban centers. See Geoffrey Hosking, The Awakening of the Soviet Union (London: Heinemann, 199o), and Nicolai Petro, The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).

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never had a chance to learn.5 Efforts to blend the old with the new or to transcend tradition failed when czars Alexander I (1801-25) and Alexander II (1855-81) tried it.° Communism, after 1917, managed a superficial rationalization of the country under integralist auspices and introduced considerable material progress. Moreover, communist leaders proved adept at learning to reappraise the global stage on which they increasingly acted. But they demonstrated their inability to adapt or to learn other lessons when, under Mikhail Gorbachev (1 986-91), they sought to institute a major domestic reform. Boris Yeltsin (1991-99), though he dissolved the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, had no more luck despite attempting fundamental changes to push Russia toward democracy and capitalism. After 1991 my story concentrates on the Russian Federation and Ukraine. It covers events and opinions in union republics other than the former Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) sufficient to tell the story of the complex interethnic relations in the czarist and Soviet empires. Ukraine is singled out in my treatment because it illustrates another way to nation-statehood, a Type E. FRAGMENTED STATE-BUILDING BEFORE 186o Constructing a Shoddy State Muscovite czars since the late fifteenth century made deliberate efforts to create a state from among the scattered estates of nobles and peasant Revolutionary nationalists (liberals and integralists) aim at the destruction of the traditional society and state and their supersession by institutions that correspond to the ideological commitments of the revolutionary counter-elites. Syncretist nationalists wish to retain various bits and pieces of the traditional order, religious values and institutions being the most important. Reformist syncretists are willing to adopt modern socioeconomic institutions and are eager to embrace techniques of industrial and military organization; but they wish to hold on to certain traditional beliefs and values, mostly concerned with social status and religious authority. Traditional syncretists reject modern values altogether but accept some modern institutions, such as political representation and civil services, while embracing modern techniques of industrial and military organization and management. Restorative syncretists reject modern values, institutions, and most techniques in favor of a return to a premodern golden age. McDaniel, Agony of the Russian Idea, as well as many Russian writers, subscribes to a theory of Russian culture that seeks to explain the failure of all regimes to carry through reforms, by way of systematic analysis, or to learn, because of the alleged inability of Russian intellectuals to think in terms other than bimodally irreconcilable absolutes: black or white, true or false, good or bad. If this interpretation is correct, collective learning is doomed, a thought particularly distressing in view of the position argued semiofficially by those charged with developing a "national idea" for post-1991 Russia. See, for instance, the totally either-or argument ("Will the new Russia go for anarchy instead of creating and strengthening a powerful state?") of Sergey V. Kortunov, "Russia: Imperial Ambition and National Interest" (paper presented at a conference at Stanford University, November 7, 1998). 327

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villages that surrounded Moscow, to conquer and integrate equally primitive neighboring Slavic states, and to subdue large numbers of non-Slavic and non-Christian peoples near them. By the late seventeenth century they had succeeded in subjecting the nobility to the will of the czar and, in exchange, extending the institution of serfdom to cover most peasants; those who escaped this fate by fleeing to the periphery of the empire became known as Cossacks. Three czars, Peter I (1689-1725), Catherine II (1762-96), and Alexander I (18o1-25), systematically but unsuccessfully sought to fashion a more centralized state modeled on western European examples. Peter decreed the compulsory service of all nobles as servants of the czar (or of the state, since for him the two were the same) by creating a rigid military and civilian bureaucracy. He also introduced conscription and modeled the army on the West's, seeking to pay for it by the institutionalization of regular taxes. And he made the Orthodox Church an instrument of imperial governance by controlling its administration. Few of these reforms, however, penetrated deeply into the countryside. Central administration remained a veneer superimposed on autonomous and segmented regional settlements. Relations between the center in St. Petersburg and the provinces remained particularistic; government was based on favoritism, not standardized procedures and defined rights. Efforts made by Catherine II to introduce a regular legal basis for government also failed, though she lightened the burden of state service for the nobility and further enlarged the powers of landowners over their serfs, all the while claiming to be working for the good of the whole people in making their lot approximate more closely the trends in the West. Alexander I sought to Westernize further, but his attempt to introduce European schools and appointment criteria for state service based on merit foundered because of intense opposition from the nobility. State-building was successful in a limited sense. The nobility was truly co-opted into the state structure, and the Westernizing cultural tone adopted by the czar's court became the model for the highest ranks of the aristocracy. None of this, however, was translated into economic or social development at lower levels of society. Social mobilization remained rudimentary. No set of ideas inspiring the peasantry into action made its appearance, and the tiny middle class remained equally inert. Much of the state administration and a good deal of what there was of professional life was in the hands of Europeans who, initially, spoke no Russian and did not belong to the Orthodox Church. Peter and Catherine actively encouraged them, especially Germans, to immigrate to serve as members of the as yet nonexisting professions. Peter co-opted the Baltic nobility, much more educated and Western than the Russian, when he took the area from Sweden. Baltic nobles quickly adopted Russian 328

Russia and Ukraine customs and became the mainstay of civilian and military service; they retained that position until 1917 despite much anti-Western sentiment generated against them as early as the 172os. Modernization and centralization in Russia remained hostage to the agricultural essence of the country. "In 1795, some 193,000 aristocrats owned 9.9 million serfs. . . . The leading 2,300 aristocrats . . . owned just over 3 million serfs."7 The nobility relied on serf labor to live a life dependent on imported luxuries, since there were few domestic manufacturing enterprises. Nine out of ten aristocratic families lived in the countryside. There were few large cities. The legal system introduced by Catherine II could not function in such a setting. Nor did orders issued by the czar in St. Petersburg make much of a ripple in local life. The peasantry was illiterate and bound to the soil owned by the nobility. Its contact with the outside world was confined to military service. It was subject to the penal jurisdiction, really the whim, of the master. "Totally lacking in legally recognized personal rights, the peasant regarded all authority as by its very nature alien and hostile. He complied when confronted with superior strength."8 Peasant life was regulated by the mir, a communal arrangement under which the council of patriarchs of a hundred or so households decided collectively who would till which fields. Mutual aid arrangements would also be decided on, and entitlement to fields was periodically changed to fit family needs. The village was collectively responsible for (and collectively punished for failure to comply in) paying taxes, selecting recruits, doing its duty by the landowner, as well as the good behavior of its members. Peasants lacked a sense of personal identity, let alone identification with the state. But they were devoutly religious and devoted to the czar as their father. "All conceptions of authority emanated from the tsar, God's vicar on earth, and bol'shak [head of the family] for all Russia. . . . All that was good was due to the tsar, but all that was bad was either 'God's will' or the fault of evil landlords or officials."9 The overwhelming purpose of the state was the waging of war. Almost half the state budget was devoted to maintaining the military. Peter I defeated Sweden and the Ottoman empire; Catherine II took vast stretches of Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belorussia from Poland and the Turks. Alexander I bested Napoleon by depending on the rigors of the Russian winter and began the conquest of the Caucasus. Nicholas I completed it, attacked Persia, and again beat the Ottomans. Until crushed by France and Britain in the Crimean War (1854-55), Russia's jerry-built Reinhard Bendix, Kings or People (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 509. 8 Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime (New York: Scribners, 1974), p. 155. 9 Ibid., pp. 161-62. 329

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unrationalized state at least proved equal to the task of defeating its even less modernized neighbors. Birth of Nationalist Sentiment Even though the absence of a socially mobilized public precluded the evolution of nationalist ideologies with a mass following for another century, Russia by the 177os saw the beginnings of an officially proclaimed "nationalism." There was also increasing evidence of nationalist thought in the writings of intellectuals. Catherine II was the first to introduce the language of nationalism into official discourse. She often spoke of the Russian fatherland and stressed that the purpose of her rule was to serve it and its people, though she identified the nobility as the main pillar of the nation. Peter I was presented as the mythic founder of the fatherland; the Orthodox faith was placed in the center of Russianness; the empress posed as the protector of Russians against non-Slays, even though she was German and considered herself a student of the philosophes, whose teachings she claimed to be applying. Yet she also founded the Russian language academy in 1783 and gave it (and its head, Nikolai Karamzin) the task of fashioning a modern Russian, to distinguish it from Church Slavonic and to avoid heavy reliance on borrowed French and German words. Karamzin, a follower of Herder, first expressed the views later known as Slavophilism. The emerging literary nationalist sentiment concentrated on praising "authentic" Russian characteristics while lampooning the west European values and manners imported by czar and court: nationalist sentiment stressed resentment of a West held out officially as more civilized than Russia. Leah Greenfeld sums up the themes: "The nation was (1) defined as a collective individual, (2) formed by ethnic, primordial factors such as blood and soil, and (3) characterized by the enigmatic soul, or spirit."10 That spirit, though innate in "the people" (narod), was really expressed by the literate elite and institutionally embodied in the Orthodox faith. " Leah Greenfeld, Nationalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 261. Greenfeld offers the argument that the differences between resentful Slavophiles and Westernizing nationalists was merely one of degree. Both, she says, wanted to change Russian autocracy and primitiveness, to create a modern nation. The Westernizers she cites shared the resentment of the Slavophiles because they thought the West had betrayed its own values. The Slavophiles despaired of Russia's ever catching up with the very West they had at first admired. Hence they wanted to bring into being a Russia better than the disappointing West. Ibid., pp. 260-73. For my purposes, the differences between the two remain far more important than these alleged similarities.

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Russia and Ukraine Lack of a Civic Religion That faith underwent a great deal of travail under the Romanov czars. The "Old Believers" split from the Orthodox Church in protests against the Nikonite reformers. Peter I met the schism by persecuting the Old Believers while replacing their priests and bishops with his followers. When the schismatics denounced the czar's government as the rule of the Antichrist, Peter abolished the patriarchate and put the church under the rule of a state-appointed synod. Although Catherine II and Alexander I stopped the persecutions and even encouraged evangelicalmystical sects that split from the Orthodox Church, Nicholas I reversed these policies by making the state church the uniquely legitimate dispenser of state-approved moral and political values. At no time did the church serve as an autonomous source of political ideas. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the state church declined in proportion to the increasing size of the population." The cultural heterogeneity of that population was not seen by the government as a major problem until the second half of the nineteenth century. Until then the czars considered most of their subjects roughly equal; they did not favor Russian speakers, nor did they insist that the minorities learn Russian. Being a loyal subject of the czar did not require professing Orthodox religious beliefs until the reign of Alexander III (1881-94). Nationalist sentiment came to the area eventually known as Ukraine by fits and starts. Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that section of the country (together with Belorussia) was known as "Little Russia"; tellingly, "Ukraine" meant both "the frontier" and "the sticks." The number of people who self-consciously identified as Ukrainians was diminutive until the end of the nineteenth century. When the poet Taras Shevchenko, and the Society of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, which he helped found, spoke of creating a Ukrainian identity, they thought of an autonomous Ukraine federated with Russia in a Pan-Slav entity. The czar's local administrators, though having formally usurped the power of 11 Churches per ioo,000 people declined from io6 in 1738 to 71 in 1840; the corresponding figures for the secular clergy were 781 and 265. Paul Miliukov, Outlines of Russian Culture, part 1, Religion and the Church (New York: Perpetua-Barnes, 1960), p. 147. It should be recalled that until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in Poland, Lithuania, and western Ukraine the Roman Catholic faith was the officially recognized one, in Estonia and Latvia the Lutheran Church, and in the Caucasus and along the Volga, Islam. Nor did the state then interfere with the religious practices of its large Jewish population. The Orthodox Church did not then contribute to literacy, education, and the publication of books and periodicals. During the eighteenth century the annual output of printed publications ranged from 12 to 366 (as compared with Germany, where it ranged from 978 to 4,012). Neither the laity nor the clergy provided a market for printers. Bendix, Kings or People, p. 504.

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the Polish and Ukrainian nobility, continued to rely heavily on local notables for recruitment into the imperial bureaucracy, resulting in the voluntary Russification of locals. After the Polish rebellion of 183o, however, Nicholas I used forced conversion of Uniate Catholics to Orthodoxy as a means of diminishing Polish influence. He also created a Ukrainianlanguage university in Kiev for the same purpose, only to have it develop later into a breeding ground of Ukrainian nationalism. Voluntary assimilation also characterized the German-speaking Baltic nobility and bourgeoisie. The Baltic Germans retained their favored position in the Russian civil service and the modernizing economy. Their hegemony was facilitated by being endowed with their own German university at Dorpat and a German system of secondary education which was much more elaborate than the Russian and relied on the Lutheran Church. However, though many assimilated, others were determined to retain their separate cultural status in the empire. Until the reign of Alexander III they were able to do so. But even before Russianization became official policy after 1881, a good deal of resentment about the preferred position apparently claimed by the Baltic Germans had been aroused among newly socially mobilized Russians living on the Baltic littoral. Catherine II gave the Muslim Volga Tatars a regime of autonomy for Islamic institutions and the encouragement of local languages alongside the introduction of Russian schools and Orthodox churches, in the hope that in the long run the Tatars would Russianize voluntarily. By the end of the nineteenth century a reformist-syncretist Tatar identity emerged that retained modernized Muslim values while embracing many aspects of secular life. The newly mobilized Tatar intelligentsia remained loyal to the empire. The Napoleonic Wars introduced a yearning for Western culture and institutions among many officers who saw service in western Europe. The abortive "liberal" revolt of 1825, which encountered overwhelming conservative resistance, illustrates the unresolved conflict among reformist syncretism, traditional syncretism, and the fuzzy liberalism that animated some of the Russian elite early in the nineteenth century. Alexander I and M. Speransky attempted a reformist-syncretist response; Karamzin articulated a traditional one that carried the day by claiming a unique Russian "soul" craving discipline, humility, and submission to autocracy. Autocratic government remained centered in the person of the czar, unrestrained by any political institutions. His power was limited only by the lethargy of his bureaucracy and his dependence on the advice of favorites. During the thirty-year reign of Nicholas I czarist autocracy was to be given a distinct and consistent traditional-syncretist expression. 332

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Russification or Russianization Once officials started to worry about the possible consequences of Russia's multicultural setting for the safety and stability of the dynasty, they had to raise the issue of how the minority populations might be influenced, how to make them less different from one another and from the Russian-speaking majority (which became a minority according to the census of 1897). Policies and objectives, czarist and Soviet, are described as Russification, deliberate Russianization, and casual Russianization.' 2 Under the czars Russification was systematically practiced after 1880. It meant that everyone was to learn enough Russian to be able to communicate with everyone else; it did not mean that non-Russian speakers were to give up their first languages or the rest of their cultures. Some officials wished to go further, however: they wanted to Russianize selected cultural groups, notably Poles, Balts, Jews, and Finns. Russianization meant inducing minorities to give up their native cultures in favor of assimilating into Russian culture by adopting Orthodoxy and redefining themselves as part of a primordial-organic collectivity called Slavdom. Being Russian meant being a part of a collective Slavic essence. Czarist Russianization, on the whole, was a failure, even though many key individuals of other cultures assimilated into the Russian mainstream during the nineteenth century. After 1917, however, many of the secessionist forces on the western periphery derived their energy from resentments accumulated earlier in resisting Russianization. But the liberal and socialist opposition to czarist absolutism contained many members of minorities who had renounced their non-Russian cultural origins without necessarily subscribing to the mysticism of organized Slavdom. They illustrate the process of casual Russianization. The Soviets pursued Russification energetically and very successfully while encouraging the use, even the rebirth, of other languages. The apparent contradiction is explored below. After 197o it took the form of sblizhenie, the fraternal cohabitation of all cultures under the benevolent hegemony of Russians. Deliberate Russianization took second place to "sovietization" as the collective cultural glue to hold the multicultural socialist utopia together. Only between 1940 and 195o did Stalin resort to outright Russianizing symbols, slogans, and measures to fire up the patriotism needed to repel 12 My discussion is the result of long and exhausting talks with George Breslauer and Keith Darden; both made me see many things I had missed. The Soviet leaders used what I have labeled "casual Russianization" not so casually; Valery Tishkov writes that they deliberately used modernization/urbanization policies in Central Asia in order to undermine local cultures. See Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict in and after the Soviet Union (London: Sage Publications, 1997). For a demonstration of the primordialist argument in Soviet ideology and after, see ibid., pp. 2-5, 66-67.

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the German invasion. Yet the organizing notion of a primordial tie among members of the Soviet people was retained from czarist days. It was eventually expressed in the formula of sliianie, the melting of nationalities. Casual Russianization is a consequence of general modernization in the particular Russian/Soviet context. People mobilized into following modern professions, into careers as czarist officials or communist cadres, as writers, teachers, and intellectuals, had to do their work in Russian, in accordance with the dictates of the hegemonic (Russian) culture. If they wanted to succeed, they had to assimilate, and did so in considerable numbers. However, cultural assimilation in all aspects of daily life did not mean that members of non-Russian groups also denied their "primordially" determined ethnic origins. Indeed, line 5 of their internal Soviet passports made it very difficult for them to do so even if they wished. Soviet nationality policy had the consequence, unintended and unforeseen by officials, of making members of non-Russian groups conscious of their separate identities even though they had no such feelings originally or were on their way to full assimilation. By the 197os there was a discernible resistance to Russification and Russianization among many non-Slavic minorities. Whether such sentiments also dominated events in Ukraine and Belorussia is doubtful. As in the case of Russian assertions earlier, these new expressions of national identity also took the form of primordialist argumentation. In parts of Central Asia, at least, Russianization, sovietization, and modernization were seen as a single cluster and were rejected by many as such. There can be no doubt, then, that cultural identities, Russian and nonRussian, are seen, defined, and defended by their articulators as primordial, genetically given, unalterable, tied to the blood of one's ancestors and to the soil they tilled. This, despite the self-contradictory belief that assimilation into another group is possible and sometimes desirable. Moreover, official Soviet law, scholarship, and propaganda strongly reinforced the primordial argument, and post-Soviet discussion continued the practice. Hence I must stress that the case for primordialism remains a social construction of the actors, not a proposition established by social science. The scientific case for primordialism is as spurious as the case for "pure" races or cultures. "Official Nationality" "Our common obligation consists in this that the education of the people be conducted, according to the Supreme intention of our August 334

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Monarch, in the joint spirit of Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality.'" Thus wrote the author of Nicholas I's version of top-down nationalism, Count S. Uvarov, the minister of education. The reassertion of the •-entrality of the Orthodox faith was necessitated, he said, by the collapse of all morality in Europe; the West was no longer worthy of being a moral exemplar. Autocracy guarantees the continued strength of Russia, the integrity of the state, which, Uvarov claimed, is felt by "an innumerable majority of the subjects of Your Majesty," as distinguished from the rebellious spirit found in the West. The meaning of "nationality" remained murky. Nicholas did not consider Russian ethnicity the defining element of the official ideology. Nationality seemed to connote the harmonious coexistence of all ethnic groups under autocracy and, increasingly, Orthodoxy, the cherishing of indigenous values that differentiate the czar's subjects from the corruption of the West. As the historian M. P. Pogodin put matters in 1837: "Our father"—these simple words contain the entire meaning of Russian history. Do not boast to us, the West, of your famous institutions! We honor your great men and recognize duly their benefactions to humanity, but we do not envy them, and we point proudly to our own: unto the West that which is western, unto the East that which is eastern.'4 In excluding all Western values, official nationality did not reject all things Western, however. It approved of borrowing military and industrial techniques as well as Prussian administrative institutions. Official nationality was Nicholas I's version of a traditional-syncretist ideology. The creed was diffused by the censored press and, above all, by the educational system, in efforts to make it a true national myth. Nicholas I encouraged professional training exclusively; he subjected university students to strict police surveillance to ensure their loyalty to the official doctrine. The curricula deliberately sought to neutralize Western values and institutions in a school population that increased tenfold between 1.8o1 and 1855 (the population of Russia doubled in those years). In 1855 17,000 boys, most of them of gentry background, were enrolled in seventy-seven secondary schools. 13 As quoted in Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), pp. 73, 75. 14 As quoted in Nicholas Riasanovsky, A Parting of the Ways (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 128. Nicholas I and Uvarov stressed the primacy of the dynasty over ethnic or proSlavic arguments about identity; Pogodin and other adherents of the "romantic" movement, however, articulated a claim that later became a full-fledged Pan-Slavism. Russia was the Third Rome, with the duty to revitalize Christianity in Europe, and the mother of all Slavic peoples, with the duty to lead and unite them.

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But Nicholas I was not able to banish the tension between accelerating social mobilization and controlling the thoughts and hopes of the people he mobilized. The people trained in his schools under the tutelage of his traditional values were to acquire very rebellious ideas of their own, to fuel ideologies very different from the official creed he handed down from the heights of autocracy. Foreign Policy and Imperial Expansion After the defeat of Napoleonic France, the czars adopted a policy of rigid international defense of absolutist monarchism. They were active participants in the Concert of Europe's efforts to maintain the new status quo established in 1815. They urged their fellow monarchs in Austria and Prussia to intervene collectively or separately in countries about to be seized by democratic forces. Nicholas I invaded Hungary in 1849 to aid the Habsburg emperor in crushing a liberal rebellion. One reason for this preoccupation with internal politics in neighboring countries was the inability of Russian rulers and bureaucrats to distinguish clearly among domestic peace, colonial administration in non-Russian borderlands recently conquered, and foreign policy. The czars forced their Bashkir minority to furnish hostages to ensure good behavior, an institution normally reserved for foreign enemies. Russian administrators were unable to distinguish between top-down nation-state building and imperial expansion. Hence the czars linked their "foreign" policy toward Muslim peoples in the eastern steppe and the Caucasus to military occupation and the encouragement of settlement by Europeans in these border areas, a policy they were to extend to Central Asia in the 186os. Constant warfare during much of the nineteenth century was required to subdue the entire Caucasus region. Their "foreign" policy toward Prussia/Germany and Austria came to include the acquisition of much of Poland and western Ukraine (Galicia), the violent suppression of two Polish rebellions, and, under Alexander III, futile attempts to Russianize Poland. Securing these areas against presumed Habsburg and Hohenzollern ambitions was one reason for the change. In prior decades the czarist administration had been content to bring about the co-optation of the local elites, usually with great success. In the Baltic provinces assimilation into Russian culture had been occurring without the application of governmental pressure, until the active Russianization policy of Alexander III and his son Nicholas II (1894-1917) stirred up ethnic resistance and triggered the beginning of Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian nationalisms. It bears stressing, however, that before 1870 no government claimed 336

Russia and Ukraine that Russia had a historical mission to protect and unify all Slays. But it was clear that the overriding objective of the czars was to punctuate Russia's status as a great power and to defend monarchical rule in Europe. How Modern, How Socially Mobilized? The traditional syncretism practiced by Nicholas I was plainly unsuccessful in rationalizing Russia. The rate of modernization resulted in accelerating the social mobilization of people who were unwilling to live under the rules handed down for them by the state. The debate over the modalities of the emancipation of serfs illustrates the government's conundrum. Alexander II was unwilling to bring about emancipation without consulting the gentry, though not to allow them full participation in the process. Different government ministries worked out competing schemes, some favoring the landowners, others the peasants. Unofficial opinions were expressed in great number but distrusted by the bureaucracy, used to ignoring public views. Since no consensus evolved, the final policy was decreed by the czar, but since he first aroused and then disappointed expectations of widespread public participation, he gained little legitimacy. Russia's modernization is revealed in table 7-1. In the first half of the nineteenth century Russia's foreign trade and shipping increased tenfold. The state invested heavily in primary education, especially after 186o, while defense expenditures declined. Children of middle-class background were admitted in large numbers to secondary schools and universities after 183o, much to the chagrin of the gentry. The rate of intellectual unemployment and underemployment for middle-class graduates was considerable, however. Even before the emancipation of the serfs, rural self-help societies were springing up in many places. The print media expanded rapidly, too, and increasingly covered events and trends in western Europe. The rationalization score in 1850 stood at 59 percent, albeit at a very low level of social mobilization. Still, as shown in table 7-2, the scene was set for derationalization as the rate of social mobilization got brisker.

FUTILE NATION-STATE BUILDING (1860-1917)

The Cacophony of Nationalist Ideologies Russia's literate classes remained small, but during the 183os and 184os they became increasingly passionate about the future of their 337

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS Table 7-1. Nineteenth-century Russia: Indicators of modernization

Population (millions)

1800

1830

186o

1 890

37

6o (1835)

74 (1858)

130 (1897)

95

1 45

42 (1832) 1 (1832) 12.4 (1832)

35 (1857) o.8 (1857) 11.1 (1857)

5,261

9,944 (1854) 11,242'

3o (1887) 2.5 (1887) 14.9 (1887) 22,483 (1887)

Income/capita (1925 $) Expenditure (% of total state spending) Defense Education Administration Industrial plants (#)

2,423

Iron production (thousand pounds)

(1900)

21,9461

Steel production (thousand pounds)

87'

15,1981

Students in elementary schools (millions)c

0.4 (1856)

2.2 (1885)

Students in universities

2,002 (1836)

3,998 (1847)

SOURCE: F. A. Brokhaus and I. A. Efron, Encyclopedia Dictionary (St. Petersburg, 1899), vols. 54, 55. NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained. a Annual average, 1857-60. b Annual average, 1881-9o. Bendix, Kings or People, pp. 522, 53o, 541. Table 7-2. Nineteenth-century Russia: Indicators of social mobilization 1830 Literacy (%) Population working in agriculture (%) Urban population (%) Printing presses (#) Scientific publications (# of books, journals) Political, social, literary publications (# of books, journals)

— 6 — 18 20

1860

1900

5 84 9 1,908 97

20 8o 15 8,638 (1890) 334 (1894)

50

147 (1890)

SOURCE: Brokhaus and Efron, Encyclopedia Dictionary, vols. 54, 55. NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained.

country. Those not persuaded to accept the doctrine of official nationality—and that included many in the intelligentsia—came to subscribe to the full spectrum of nationalist ideologies. After 1855, as literacy increased, higher education expanded, and publications multiplied, the 338

Russia and Ukraine cacophony of ideological discourse became deafening despite state censorship and the persecution of "subversive" ideas. Russia's backwardness was one core theme; its relationship to Western culture and politics the second. Should backwardness be resolved by remaining true to the essence of Russian culture, or should the policies of Peter I and Catherine II be intensified so as to make Russia like Germany, Britain, or France? After the advent of Alexander II in 1855, the open advocacy of Westernization became acceptable as a means for strengthening Russia though the implantation of Western values as such remained contested.'5 Westernizers were to be found primarily among the bureaucracy and journalists, as well as among higher nobles. They argued for the introduction of representative institutions, for the abolition of serfdom, for the development of industry, and for capitalism. They were opposed by two major groups of opponents: Slavophiles, found among writers and journalists and some bureaucrats, and Narodniks, who were mostly students.16 Both claimed to represent the "true" Russia of the common people, to rescue it from the Westernizing elite's alien culture. Both identified this "true" culture with the peasantry and its institutions, with organic collectivism, especially the mir. Both distrusted Western European values as corrupt, abhorred capitalism and utilitarianism, and wanted to spare Russia the pain of the class struggle in reforming its social hierarchy. Table 7-3 shows who, among important intellectuals, believed what. But Slavophiles and Narodniks disagreed on most things. Reformist and traditional-syncretist Narodniks endorsed science; most Slavophiles distrusted it. Traditional- and restorative-syncretist Slavophiles despised industry; most Narodniks favored its introduction. Slavophiles defended czarist autocracy as suited to Russia's collective soul, though they opposed " An influential school of commentators on Russian history and culture, exemplified by Nicolas Berdyaev, argues that all Russian political ideologies are messianic, including the nineteenth-century Westernizers and their twentieth-century heirs, the Bolsheviks. Whether liberal, integral, or syncretist, all are committed to the idea that Russia is an exemplar for the world, that Russia's mission is to improve the world by making it over in its own image. Berdyaev sees the source of this messianism in Russia's essentially Orthodox-Christian "soul." This insight becomes significant when one considers some of the Narodniks (Tkachev, Chernichevsky, the later Herzen) who were not really Russian nationalists. Their revolutionary opposition to czarist autocracy and serfdom made them advocate syncretist changes that were to serve as models for global reform and revolution, much as Lenin interpreted the larger purpose of the Bolshevik Revolution. Hence anarchism and socialism were ideologically combinable with syncretist ideas about Russia. " These are grab-bag categories, characterized by much terminological confusion among intellectual historians. Slavophiles included supporters and opponents of autocracy, Great Russian supremacists and regional autonomists, religious zealots and secularists. Narodniks included both cosmopolitans and Russian nationalists; they all claimed to speak for the peasantry, though none in fact did.

339

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Table 7-3. Some opposition nationalists Slavophile Reformist syncretist Traditional syncretist Restorative syncretist

Fadaev, Aksakov, Danilevsky, Chaadaev, Granovsky Katkov Strakhov, Dostoyevsky

Narodnik Bakunin Lavrov Herzen (late)

the bureaucracy as elitist; Narodniks tended toward either anarchism or radical local autonomy while praising socialism. Most important: Slavophiles were determined to strengthen Great Russian cultural and political hegemony; some advocated a global mission for Russia to civilize the world. Narodniks were indifferent to Russian cultural influence and opposed Russian political power. Even though almost all kinds of syncretism were found among both, Slavophiles tended to be conservative nationalists. Narodniks were not; they were persecuted by the police because of behavior considered subversive, including some spectacular acts of terrorism; many lived in voluntary exile in the West, many more in enforced exile in Siberia. Aborted Constitutional Reforms Some of the post-1855 Westernizers—A. V. Berdyaev, Vissarion Belinsky, and D. I. Pisarev—were Jacobin Liberals. Some high czarist officials, such as P. A. Valuev, D. A. Miliutin, and D. N. Shipov, held Whiggish liberal views. Still others inclined toward reformist syncretism, for instance the Grand Duke Constantine, Peter Struve, and Boris Chicherin.17 All were concerned with introducing the Western concept of law as clearly defining individual rights and obligations and with circumscribing the power of the monarch. They argued in vain against all the Romanovs— until the revolution of 1905 gave them a brief victory. The sixty years we are now reviewing are made up of failed efforts to move the polity toward a reformist-syncretist nation-state, away from the traditional-syncretist empire over which Nicholas II still sought to rule. Alexander II made two major reforms, neither of which satisfied his 17 The individuals I label reformist syncretists are often described as "liberal conservatives" or "conservative liberals" by historians concerned more with constitutional issues than with nationalism. See Philip Boobbyer, "Russian Liberal Conservatism," in Geoffrey Hosking, ed., Russian Nationalism, Past and Present (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), pp. 35-54. Hosking, in ibid., pp. 19-34, explains why late-nineteenth-century Russian imperialism interfered with successful nation-building.

340

Russia and Ukraine critics. He abolished serfdom, though the peasantry was deeply disappointed with the terms of its freedom. He introduced elected deliberative councils, the so-called zemstvo, at all levels of government but not at the center. Liberals and reformist syncretists tried repeatedly to vest true legislative power in them but always failed because of the czars' refusal. Successive advisers told the czars that a partly elected empire-wide advisory council was needed to preempt the Narodniks and Anarchists. The suggestions were turned down as too revolutionary. Nicholas II did not consent to multiparty elections to a real parliament (the Duma) until, following defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the entire country was on the eve of rebelling. Rebellion had become possible because of the sharply increasing rate of social mobilization following the emancipation of the peasantry. Moreover, factories sprang up, millions of peasants became factory workers, and transportation and publishing grew apace. The czars continued to invest heavily in technical education, resulting in the growth of a larger body of literate, urban people, many of whom developed into the oppositionist intelligentsia for whom "ideas" were palpable liberalizing entities for challenging the autocratic order, often with terrorism. Voluntary and professional societies developed rapidly. When Nicholas II became czar in 1894, conscription was still regarded by many recruits as a catastrophe, a divine punishment. Yet by 1914 military service had become more popular and egalitarian: the percentage of nobles in the officer corps had declined to 51 percent, from the 72 percent it had been in 1893. The 1905 revolution ushered in a protoliberal constitutional regime, presided over at first by Prime Minister P. A. Stolypin, a reformist syncretist who really tried to push Russia toward a liberal nation-state, only to be thwarted by the czar, who prevented the Duma from becoming a real legislature. The political parties included the liberal Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) as well as various conservative groups that opposed the constitution. Most important, however, both were opposed in and out of the Duma by a large variety of revolutionary socialists. The Marxists among them, neither the Bolshevik nor the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, were not nationalists at all. They cared nothing about Russia as such; world revolution was the drama, Russia merely the scene in which they happened to play. Their interest in Russia was purely instrumental. Other socialists, however, including some trade unions, had distinctly syncretist sympathies, Narodnik and Slavophile. For them, there was something special about Great Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, and Balts that would yield a formula for combining the socialist revolution with ethnic autonomy. G. V. Plekhanov and I. 0. Martov held such views. 34

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Modernization, Discontent, and the Last Years of Czardom The last years of the czarist regime remind us of how difficult it is for a traditional-syncretist regime to reform itself. Most demands for change appear incompatible with the values and institutions still cherished and honored by the rulers once some slight reforms are instituted. Almost everything said against them, almost any demand for change beyond small concessions, is seen as subversive. And yet the czars' own earlier policies had created many of the conditions and opportunities that now fueled discontent. Any act of repression is experienced as an aggravated grievance by the opposition, making peaceful change impossible and erasing what little legitimacy is left to the rulers. The rationalization score had sunk to 5o percent in 1900. After 1905 dissatisfaction and alienation grew despite the palpable improvement of economic conditions for the middle and working classes and despite modest political reforms. After 1890 the pace of modernization and of social mobilization picked up considerably. Moving beyond the data in table 7-1, we note that railway mileage doubled between 1890 and 1902, that population in the new industrial towns of the east and southeast tripled in some cases during that decade, and that by 1894 72 percent of industrial workers were employed in enterprises that engaged more than one hundred workers. Workers after the turn of the century were less likely to move back and forth between home village and city, and large numbers became literate by means of their own efforts. National income increased by 39 percent between 1900 and 1913, per capita income by 25 percent, and industrial production by 62 percent. Capital and state expenditures doubled, even though the population grew only by 22 percent.18 This effort at social and economic modernization without major political reform was spearheaded by Count Sergei Witte, Nicholas II's main minister during these years. A Slavophile committed to reformistsyncretist nationalism, Witte, like contemporaries in Japan and China, was determined to build an industrially strong Russia able to withstand pressures from the West without compromising its culture. He favored capitalism, private enterprise, and commercial peasant agriculture instead of the mir, and the growth of a puritan work ethic derived from Orthodoxy. That same faith was to strengthen newly urban workers against alienation and socialism. His policy was what later became known as import-substituting industrialization: tariff protection for Russian industry, state subsidies to enterprising peasants and industrialists, construction of infrastructure 18 These statistics come from Theodor Shanin, Russia as a Developing Society (London: Macmillan, 1985), pp. 105-1o, and Hugh Seton-Watson, The Decline of Imperial Russia (New York: Praeger, 1962).

342

Russia and Ukraine (notably railways and schools), attraction of foreign investors, avoidance of high military expenditures and of imperial expansion. Witte failed in the sense that his program aroused opposition from all corners by 1905: the czar wanted to continue imperial expansion in Asia, the nobility disliked his disdain for the zemstvo system and his support for commercialized agriculture, the Liberals opposed his defense of autocracy, many Slavophiles considered him too Western, and nascent labor organizations opposed his breakneck pace of change. As long as peasants remained on the land, they were not overwhelmed by that pace. Following emancipation, the state was conflicted: it wanted to preserve the stability and cohesion of peasant households and traditional rural communal institutions. But it also supported the migration eastward of peasants able to move. The migrants were free to practice individualistic commercial farming, and all were left to manage their newly acquired land according to their own rules, traditional or modern. No pressure to abandon traditional farming methods for commercial agriculture was exercised until 1906, when the state condemned communal governance as backward and sought to abolish it. At that point the forces of change impinged on the peasantry, accelerating the move to the city and the growth of commercial farming. Educational effort, especially at the level of rural primary schools, went hand in hand with emancipation and the creation of the zemstvo system. By 188o there were almost 23,000 elementary schools in European Russia, enrolling 1.1 million students. By 190o Russia had 77,000 elementary schools for children and 1,785 for adults, with a total of 4 i million students. Whereas the state alone could run schools before 1864, a division of labor between state and private schools was arranged thereafter. Both systems were subject to censorship and rigorous supervision by the police. Apart from stressing literacy and vocational skills, the schools were explicitly designed to teach patriotism and loyalty to the Romanov dynasty.19 Urban workers, of course, were the more radically mobilized into modernity. The bureaucracy, eager to avoid the kind of class confrontations common in western Europe, showed awareness of the misery, poverty, and bad working conditions that prevailed and initiated some workplace reforms at the same time as these were introduced in the West. The state sought to protect workers by encouraging the formation " Apparently, the impact of intensified rural educational efforts was very uneven. Almost 12,000 rural teachers were surveyed in 1911 as to their effect on peasant attitudes and beliefs: 58.5 percent of respondents thought the most important changes were educational/ cognitive; 39.2 percent thought the changes were mostly moral and cultural; 27.5 percent believed the impact of schooling was most pronounced in raising economic status, but only 16.5 percent cited improvement in civic involvement, whereas a mere 7.6 percent were impressed with improvements in health. Ben Eklof, Peasant Schools (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 425-26.

343

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

of cooperative artisanal groups and voluntary associations for selfimprovement. Private charitable organizations also sprang up in many centers. Major reforms were stalled, however, because the Westernizing bureaucracy wanted to introduce legislation based on individual rights whereas the Slavophiles sought more "authentic" collective solutions. Striking remained illegal and was severely punished. Trade unions also remained illegal until 1906. Nevertheless, beginning in 1870 workers managed to mount some successful strikes, and illegal unions sprang up long before 1906. Their effectiveness was limited by their squabbling over the priority of total revolution over incremental improvements in wages and working conditions. Imperialism and Russification of Minorities It is impossible to develop a civil religion under conditions of imposed rule, disrespect for minority cultures, and the desire to thrust one's own down the throats of others. The crystallization of a mass sense of Russian nationhood in the last quarter of the nineteenth century forced the elites to ask how linguistic and religious minorities were to fit into the Russian nation-state the authorities sought to fashion. But not all conquered minorities felt excluded. Armenians and Georgians, possessed of a highly developed Christian culture, welcomed the Russian embrace as protection against the Turks. Finns, Swedes, Baltic Germans, and the Ukrainian higher clergy—their cultures not threatened until the 188os by Russianization and forced conversion—were treated as equals by the government; they had no reason to seek separate identities until the last decades of the empire. However, non-German Balts, unprivileged Ukrainians, Tatars, Poles, Muslim North Caucasians, Jews, and the Muslim peoples of Central Asia increasingly felt themselves to be prisoners of the empire. No economic-material explanation of Russian expansion into Persia, Central Asia, North China, and Korea is convincing. None of the conditions of monopoly capitalism allegedly conducive to imperialism applied. Imperial expansion almost seems to represent a pure Schumpeterian "objectless" drive to conquer simply because the inherited code of the Russian military nobility called for it. Actually, matters were more complex. Although the Pan-Slav ideology helps explain the wars against Turkey, no such argument can be made for the large conquests undertaken in Central and East Asia between 1860 and 1905. The state substituted imperialism for domestic reform. It called on rising Russian nationalism, both Slavophile and liberal, to 344

Russia and Ukraine justify heroic self-assertion, while sidestepping demands for political reform. This seemed to work until the lost war of 1905 and the even more catastrophic defeats of World War I. The opponents of czardom thereafter lost whatever faith they may have had in nationalism linked to imperialism. Pan-Slavism was clearly the inspiration for the frequent wars with the Ottoman empire and the rivalry with Austria-Hungary in the Balkans. Count Vronsky assured Anna Karenina of his duty to fight for his little Slavic brothers in Serbia; Russian foreign ministers repeatedly declared Russia to be the protector of Serbia and Bulgaria. Nicholas II, in the decade before 1914, tried very hard to obtain the consent of the European powers for Russia's annexation of Istanbul and the Straits linking the Black Sea with the Mediterranean, asserting Russia's religioushistorical guardianship of eastern Christendom. Russian opinion was outraged when Austria, in 1908, annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. Imperialism exacerbated the empire's problems with multiethnicity. After 188o, increasingly, the syncretist-minded elite came to feel that the culture of the empire ought to be Great Russian: everyone ought to speak Russian and adhere to the Orthodox faith. Muscovy was the authentic heir of the founder of Rus, the Varangian state of Kiev. More and more, the bureaucracy felt that the purpose of government was to induce minorities to leave their cultures behind and assimilate into GreatRussianness. Not all political parties agreed with this after the democratizing reforms of 1905. Increasingly, opinion in the Great Russian provinces was bifurcated: the more liberal nationalists sought formulas of accommodation with ethnic minorities; the syncretists opted for more aggressive Russification or even Russianization. In the case of the Jews, this attitude translated into the pogroms initiated by the restorative-syncretist Black Hundreds, local cells of religious fanatics, mostly in Ukraine, tolerated if not encouraged by the government as a substitute for reform immediately preceding World War I. The advent of electoral competition in 1905 compelled the newborn political parties to develop positions on the future of multiethnicity. The newly aroused Pan-Slavism of the syncretist (conservative) parties brooked no compromise with the Great Russian cultural monopoly. The liberal-nationalist Kadets advocated full equality of civil and political rights for all subjects of the empire, including cultural rights, though they opposed a federal constitution and insisted that Russian alone be the official language of schools and state. The various integralist-socialist parties differed among themselves. The Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs, successors to the Narodniks) favored a federal constitution based on the principle of full local cultural autonomy, 345

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

and they did best in elections held in minority areas. The Mensheviks, though opposed to federalism, endorsed cultural autonomy for minorities; they held respect for nationalism to be compatible with socialism. "Socialist Internationalism": Bolshevik Conundrum Not so the Bolsheviks. Before 1913 Lenin and his colleagues condemned all nationalism as a time-bound bourgeois phenomenon, along with federalism and cultural self-determination; class was expected to trump nationality as a focus of ultimate political loyalty. During the war Lenin elaborated a position that granted more staying power to ethnic attachments because of his recognition that the revolutionary politics of the day were dominated by the "national bourgeoisie," not by the proletariat. His "proletarian solution" allowed for local cultural selfdetermination for small nationalities within a unitary state but conceded to large territorially concentrated minorities the right to full independence. This compromise was to satisfy both the Marxist internationalists and revolutionary allies among the minorities. Lenin was to have his way, for a few years, after he seized power in November 1917, even though many other Bolshevik leaders rejected his formula. The "internationalist" opposition, led by Stalin and N. Bukharin, held out for a unitary state, unmarred by any territorial or cultural concessions to nationalism. The reassertion of Russian power over secessionist areas was justified by the claim that the proletariat, led by the Bolsheviks, was the sole authentic voice of the people, not bourgeois nationalists led by Mensheviks, SRs, or non-Marxist local parties. "National-communist" views, such as those expressed by the Tatar Marxist leader Sultan Galiev, argued that the non-European victims of Great Russian imperialism were the true proletariat, the "proletariat of the proletariat," as the founders of the Chinese Communist Party proclaimed at the same moment. Hence these victims, especially Muslims, were entitled to special national rights under socialism. Nothing was heard or seen of Sultan Galiev after Stalin's advent to power in 1928. Lenin's policies granted the right of secession to non-Russian areas. He wrote a federal constitution for what was left of the Russian empire and implemented the policy of "nativization," encouraging the expression of local culture, literature, and language. The policy resulted in the definition and solidification of many new ethnic identities in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and among non-Russian groups within the Russian core. He did not contest the secession of Poland and acquiesced in the independence of Finland and of the Baltic countries after local Bolsheviks were defeated in civil wars. However, he found reasons to justify the forceful reconquest of secessionist Ukraine, Daghestan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. 346

Russia and Ukraine Central Asia reverted to Soviet rule after the local White and autonomist forces were defeated. Lenin as well as the internationalists had envisaged the federation as a melting pot; eventually, they expected nationalism to become irrelevant despite short-run concessions. As things turned out, these "short-run concessions" inadvertently made the Soviet Union the incubator of new nations. Even Great Russian communists were not of one mind about their own national identity. Lenin and Stalin during the 192os actively discouraged the display of Great Russian symbolism and downplayed the role of Russians in the history of the country. In education and propaganda the historical role of Russian traditions and of Slavdom were ridiculed; Orthodox beliefs and institutions were actively persecuted. Yet such communist poets and writers as Voloshin, Klyuyev, Byely, Mayakovsky, and Khlebnikov still sought to blend socialist, Narodnik, and Slavophile ideas. They presented communism as the final victory of the Russian soul over Western materialism. They celebrated Slav folklore as pre-Christian cultural achievements, and Russian peasant institutions as the forerunner of the socialist utopia about to arrive. But then, none were heard from by the 193os. Neither were the "national communists," heretics whom the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) would not tolerate despite its endorsement of national self-determination.20 How Minority Nationalism Challenged Great Russian Imperialism Nationalism is a feeling of superiority on the part of people who identify themselves as being different from "others," a feeling often due to resentment born of perceived discrimination on the part of the "others." "Sel' and "other" typically see themselves as differing on these grounds: socioeconomic status, language, religion, and race (the last three, collectively, we call "culture"). In general, the following proposition holds: if self and other see themselves as differing on two or more dimensions, self will seek to separate itself from other by creating an independent nationstate; if the difference is confined to one dimension, the feeling of difference is not strong enough to trigger a movement for separation.21 Note, however, that a nationalist sentiment subscribed to only by intellectuals 20 Both czarist and Soviet ethnographic officials took enormous liberties in naming and classifying minorities, in creating non-European collective identities. For a systematic comparison of naming practices in censuses from 1897 to 1989, see Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, pp. 15-21. 21 See Chapter 2 of Volume 1 of this work for a detailed exposition of this proposition. I have relied heavily on Ronald Grigor Suny, The Revenge of the Past (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), for the material in this section. However, I have not adopted his conceptual scheme, which pits socialism (class) against nationalism (ethnicity) as the competing explanations of the choices actually made after 1917 by ethnic minorities.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

had developed in all non-Russian areas except Central Asia by the 188os. Failure to secede was often the result of inadequate prior social mobilization. In all instances the mobilized-unassimilated groups had a threefold choice: (1) stay with Russia, czarist or Soviet, (2) secede as anti-Bolsheviks (following our Type D), or (3) choose the "national communist" formula (our Type E). By 1920 the Balts, Finns, and Poles had successfully chosen the second option, Armenia and Central Asia the first, and the others succumbed to Moscow after attempting to secede. Only Ukraine came close to choosing national communism. How well does the two-plus hypothesis hold up in post-1905 Russia, and especially after 1917? Some liberal Poles, after 1905, were interested in a federal tie with Russia; they found no Russians willing to discuss this seriously. For decades, Russians living in Siberia had complained about neglect and also demanded a federal reorganization of the empire that would give them a louder voice: they were persecuted by the police for their views. Most Jews responded by embracing one of two creeds: Zionism as opposed to a Marxism that would give the Jewish minority the right to cultural self-determination in a socialist Russia (Bundism); both were denounced by the Bolsheviks as "bourgeois-nationalists." These cases are consistent with the hypothesis. Great Russian cultural hegemony aroused different kinds of responses among the minorities. Few supported the Bolshevik revolution en masse; most were divided between adherence to various Russian political parties and local nationalist formations. The Provisional Government refused to consider even the creation of a Russian federal regime, let alone sanction secession: the Marxist parties, as we saw, were far from being of one mind. Neither were many of the minorities. In these cases the hypothesis does less well. For instance, Volga Tatars were split; some wanted to use the pressure of the government to Russify as an occasion for quickly modernizing their society; others wanted to use their traditional Islamic institutions to modernize gradually. After 1905 the community remained divided among Mensheviks, Kadets, and SRs: none advocated secession, but almost all demanded regional cultural autonomy. Yet during the civil war of 1918-20 many Tatars fought with the Bolsheviks, remaining under the illusion that the Party would continue indefinitely its instrumentally motivated temporary tolerance. Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Central Asia by contrast meet the two-plus dimensions test. In the Baltic countries an indigenous peasantry battled landowners and an urban middle class that was German, Russian, Polish, or Jewish. Disputes were over religion, language, and economic status. Yet workers and some urban elements opted for the Bolsheviks; independence was eventually achieved as a result of bloody civil wars 348

Russia and Ukraine in which German occupation forces helped the anti-Bolshevik side. In Poland the entire country opposed Russian rule on religious and linguistic grounds, but independence also required foreign help, German in 1917 and French in 192o. In Central Asia things were different. The state sought merely to keep the peace in order to facilitate European settlement; hence it tolerated traditional Islamic schools.22 The only serious rebellion occurred in 1916, triggered by the government's drafting indigenous people for labor service in Europe, a protest that developed into an anti-settler uprising. The revolt was easily suppressed even while Russia was losing the war in Europe. It is hard to discern much nationalist sentiment at this time. The elites, as among the Tatars, had been successfully co-opted by the government. They stood for cultural autonomy while accepting modernity and membership in the empire. In the Duma Muslim elites espoused a reformist-syncretist ideology but failed to build an effective bloc of their own. In Central Asia, however, after 1905 a genuine traditionalist antiRussian movement called Dzhadidism attracted a following among the few literates and agitated for secession, while most of the co-opted Muslim leaders were content to argue for Muslim religious autonomy. During the civil war the indigenous population remained mostly inert while the few autonomists joined the Whites among the local Russians in battling the Bolsheviks, unsuccessfully as it turned out. The two-plus formula remains irrelevant because of the low level of social mobilization. The rule does not hold up well in the cases of Finland and the Transcaucasian republics. All Finns favored independence except the industrial workers of the south, who, though Bolsheviks, did not differ from pro-independence Finns on other dimensions. All Armenians, irrespective of class or faith, opted for Russia, czarist or communist, when threatened by Turkey, though the Dashnak nationalists were always stronger than any of the Marxist parties. The Georgian peasantry and intellectuals, in 1917, wished to remain part of a socialist Russia not led by the Bolsheviks. Georgia's Menshevik leaders succumbed eventually to Bolshevik military attack. Politics in Azerbaijan was dominated by strife pitting Bolshevik Armenian and Russian oil workers against Muslimautonomist Azeri peasants and landowners, while both attacked a large Armenian middle class that supported other socialist parties. The Red 22 Much of Central Asia was populated by nomads. The only statelike entities were the khanates in what is today Uzbekistan, in which the Russians practiced indirect rule. St. Petersburg encouraged and generously subsidized European immigration and provided Russian schools and land for the settlers while neglecting education for the indigenous population. Russian administrators and settlers did not learn the local languages and relied completely on native interpreters; hence made many serious mistakes. Settlers, especially the Cossacks among them, were organized into militias to combat native rebellions.

349

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Army had no trouble taking over the country after Turkish and British occupation forces withdrew and the White Russians were defeated. Ethnic minorities had significantly contributed to the derationalization of the czarist empire. Half the active participants in antigovernment actions after 1870 were not Russians but mostly Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians. The Mensheviks depended heavily on members of ethnic minorities, and the SRs included many. Advanced education and modernization correlated heavily with commitment to political revolt; the most socially mobilized regions were also the most restless: Poland, Finland, the Baltic littoral, eastern Ukraine, and the two big metropolitan centers. Was it the mobilized but unassimilated who rebelled? Among Russians the rule does not hold because most of the dissatisfied were actually quite assimilated; but among the minorities the rule holds up very well. It was Estonian and Latvian peasants who fought German and Russian landowners, Ukrainian peasants opposed Polish nobles, Jews fought for equality against Great Russians. In 1905 riots in Poland, the Baltic countries, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasus preceded Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg. Mutinous troops spontaneously organized themselves into ethnic units and then proceeded, in 1917, to radicalize the peasantry against landowners of a different culture. Ukrainian Nationalism and Transitory Independence In Ukraine a full-fledged movement for independence arose by 1914, though it did not speak for the bulk of Ukrainians, whether subjects of Russia or Austria-Hungary. Peoples who lived in Galicia and Bukovina (under Austrian rule), Transcarpathia (Ruthenia, ruled by Hungary), and Little Russia on the right and left banks of the river Dnieper spoke different dialects of the same "Little Russian" language; all were held to be "Ukrainians" by the early ideologists. But those under AustroHungarian rule were Catholic Uniates (also known as West Ukrainians or Ruthenians). The others (who also called themselves Cossacks) either were Russian Orthodox or considered themselves adherents of the Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Catholic Poles and millions of Jews lived among them, not to mention Muslim Tatars and Protestant Germans. In the districts east of the Dnieper more Russian than Ukrainian was spoken even among peasants, and Russian was the hegemonic language in all larger "Ukrainian" cities located within the empire. Great Russians denied the legitimacy of a separate Little Russian identity. Ukrainian-speaking peasants were objects of disdain. Throughout the nineteenth century Ukraine was increasingly settled by Russians, as Ukrainians in large numbers migrated eastward to the steppe and to 350

Russia and Ukraine

Siberia. Only one-third of the fast-growing urban population, in the I89os, did not shift to the use of Russian. Most Ukrainian-speaking peasants lacked the Russian rural communalism, preferred private ownership of land, and were very disappointed by the results of the emancipation. Industrialization and the development of a working class was especially rapid in Ukraine, albeit involving Russians and Jews more than Ukrainians. Schools and school enrollment at all levels rose quickly toward the end of the nineteenth century, but Ukrainian-speakers benefited less than Russian-speakers, who continued to dominate the civil service and the professions. Nationalist sentiment can be traced to the 183os, when a few members of the intelligentsia initiated an active literary movement that extolled Ukrainian folklore and sought to dignify the Ukrainian language.23 These ideologists mythologized the freedom and nobility of the Cossacks and contrasted it favorably with Russian autocracy, though other Cossack regions identified strongly as Russians. The state suppressed the movement until 1856, when the use of Ukrainian in schools became legal once more even though the literate elite, by and large, was successfully co-opted into the use of Russian. After 1881 the use of Ukrainian was outlawed again, only to be reallowed in 1905. When it caught on rapidly, the government clamped down once more. On the whole, after 1881, expressions of Ukrainian national identity were suppressed by the police in Russian Ukraine but encouraged by the Austrians. Consequently, the first true movement proposing political autonomy developed in Galicia. Not that Ukrainians agreed with one another on their national future. Until 1918 many favored federal union with Russia. Ukrainian Marxists of all varieties shared the contradictory perspectives of their Russian colleagues. However, the Ukrainian SRs sought to mobilize the Ukrainian-speaking peasantry and insisted that national identity trumps class solidarity; they received two-thirds of the popular vote in the 1917 election to the Russian Constituent Assembly and dominated the various governments that attempted to rule the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) that came into being in 1918 under German sponsorship. " The following were the main prophets of Ukrainian nationalism. The chief mythologists among the creators of Ukrainian nationalist sentiment after 185o included the "Ukrainian Pushkin," Taras Shevchenko, and Mykhailo Drahomanov. Shevchenko originated the cult of worshiping Cossack society as pure and noble, of Ukrainian glory, betrayal, defeat, and eventual redemption. Drahomanov combined peasant-worshiping populism with an anarchism of radical decentralization and a non-Marxist socialism but envisaged federal ties with Russia. Their ideas were put to use as nationalist scholarship after Igo° by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, one of the leaders of the UNR. Prominent prophets of later Ukrainian nationalism included Dmytro Dontsov, a racist integralist, and Viacheslav Lypinsky, whose nationalism was mostly liberal, tinged with monarchism. The "hetman" of the UNR, Symon Petliura, sought to combine a socialist with a populist ideology. 35'

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

The UNR merged with the Western Ukrainian "state" that had come into existence on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian empire; but before long that nascent entity was conquered by Poland. The UNR limped along until 192o, when, in their third attempt, the Bolsheviks conquered it and rejoined it with Russia. The final quasi-nationalist-communist regime never exercised control over most of the country; lacked the support of the important cities; was unable to fight off simultaneous attacks by Poland, the Red Army, and the Whites; and lost the support of its own peasantry because of its timidity with respect to land reform. The gap between the socially mobilized but unassimilated and the assimilated was never large enough to permit an unequivocal victory for separation, not even during the civil war. The only consistent advocates of full national self-determination were the integralist Galicians who sought to assert their autonomy vis-a-vis Poland. Had a Ukrainian nationalism taken off in 1917, it would have been of Type C or D; when independence did come in 1991, without a full-blown nationalism, it was to be of Type E. Lenin extended his toleration of minority rights to Ukraine and encouraged the formation of a separate Ukrainian communist party; but Stalin, after Lenin's death in 1924, systematically undercut efforts to institutionalize an autonomous Ukrainian soviet republic. He also rescinded most of the earlier cultural and linguistic concessions as he forced collectivization on the Ukrainian peasantry after 193o. However, his 1936 constitution continues the tradition begun by Lenin's 1922 federal formula for the USSR. Both documents established a formal federation among units defined in cultural-territorial terms; both grant the principle of national self-determination with the right of secession (as did the constitution of 1977) as a temporary concession to nationalisms aroused by past policies of discrimination. Neither concession ever did more than camouflage the actual policies designed to prevent secession. But Stalin, unlike Lenin, put much more stress on acculturation and assimilation of minority cultures, and eventually on a reassertion of Great Russianism as the definer of the collective identity. The fate of National Communism in Ukraine was far from brilliant. Because of the economic importance of the area to the Soviet leaders, Moscow never relaxed its control. Ukrainian Bolsheviks sought a federal tie with Russia and an autonomous communist party of their own (CPU). Lenin agreed in principle because Ukraine became officially independent in 1918 and because the recognition might reduce German, Polish, czarist, and non-Marxist nationalist influence.24 To ensure 24 The Soviet leaders before 1941 played a duplicitous game with the Ukrainian language and the fostering of an attachment to a still weak sense of Ukrainian ethnicity, as they did

352

Russia and Ukraine Moscow's control, the CPU was always to be run by Russians and Russified Ukrainians. Nevertheless, Ukraine gained somewhat of a separate identity under Soviet rule. All Ukrainian-speaking areas (and many Russian-speaking ones as well) became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by 1945. As early as 1927 7o percent of government business was conducted in Ukrainian and 54 percent of government employees identified themselves as Ukrainians. Urban literacy rose from 40 percent in 1917 to 7o percent 1927, while rural literacy rose to 5o percent in the same year. Nationalist-communist ideas continued to be expressed even within the CPU, including complaints of Russian economic exploitation because of grain seizures in the early 193os which led to the great famine. By 1933 more than half the population of the rapidly growing industrial centers had become Ukrainian-speaking. Why Traditional Syncretism Did Not Rationalize Russia In October 1905 the czar felt compelled to proclaim the legal equality of all his subjects, regardless of ethnic identity; at the same time, he remained committed to a policy of Great Russian hegemony. As Great Russians became a minority of its population, the empire they had formed and dominated compensated for their decline by trying to strengthen their position of preeminence and enlisting Great Russian nationalism in the effort. This meant a deemphasis of the supranational character of the dynasty and its adoption of nationalist policies, symbols and slogans—"one tsar, one creed, one law, one language." It also meant antagonizing groups like the Baltic Germans who had been one of the mainstays of the monarchy and rejecting others, such as Jews, Georgians or Armenians, who might have reconciled to it.25 Was the 1917 Revolution inevitable?26 Put differently, was the effort to modernize Russia under the auspices of traditional syncretism doomed to with other languages and minority identities. The language (s) were officially encouraged, as were local "autonomous" communist parties, in order to have Ukraine serve as a magnet of attraction for Ukrainian-speakers living outside the Soviet Union. Even Ukrainians living in other union republics were exposed to the superficial incentives to "Ukrainianize" just as the authentic spokesmen for a separate Ukrainian culture were persecuted and often killed. See the work of Terry Martin as summarized by David Laitin, Identity in Formation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), pp. 52-54. 25 Hans Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 23. 26 My ontological commitment rejects the notion of inevitable outcomes. Demonstrating elective affinities, as I am, does not amount to making forceful causal claims. Therefore, the very idea of inevitability is too strong for my mode of argumentation. That, however, need not prevent me from speculating about the possibility of outcomes other than the ones

353

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

fail because that effort triggered the very ideas and movements that brought down the czars? Could autocracy have given way peacefully to the reformist syncretism of Witte or the liberal nationalism of the Kadets? Many historians think so. We know that efforts at reforming the system of autocracy and the ideology of official nationality that legitimated it failed because of the fears of their authors that too many concessions would bring about the collapse of the entire state structure. We know that the problems of the peasantry, of urban labor, and of the national minorities had not been solved. In fact, grievances proclaimed by these groups had become more serious after 1905. We know that the foreign policy of truculent imperialism brought Russia closer to destruction than might have been the case with a more peaceful approach. Table 7-4 shows that a few reforms contemplated in 1900 might have improved the rationalization score. Alexander II and his ministers seriously studied the debacle of the Crimean War and fashioned their reforms in an effort to save Russia. But Table 7 -4. Russia/Soviet Union: Extent of rationalization 1850 1900 1930 1950 1970 1990 1997' Political succession National myth in education Religious institutions Civil religion Cultural uniformity Language Income distribution Workers' organizations Farmers' organizations Payment of taxes Conscription Fighting wars Administrative cohesion Foreign policy Peaceful change Legitimacy

yes yes no no some no yes some yes yes yes yes no some some yes yes yes yes no some no no some yes yes no no some no some yes some no some yes yes yes yes some some yes no some yes yes no yes yes no some some no no some yes no some no no no no some some some N/A N/A N/A N/A no yes some yes yes yes some no yes yes N/A some N/A some some no some some yes some some some yes yes yes yes yes some yes some no no no yes yes yes yes no some some some no some

Total (%)

59

5o

61

67

68

33

53

Russia only.

observed, particularly in an enterprise that probes the rationalizing potential of syncretist modes of thought. On counterfactual argumentation with reference to Russia and the Soviet Union, see George W. Breslauer, "Counterfactual Reasoning in Western Studies of Soviet Politics and Foreign Relations," in Philip Tetlock and Aaron Belkin, eds., Counterfactual Thought Experiments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

354

Russia and Ukraine they did so without wishing to alter the foundation of the traditionalsyncretist myth that legitimated their rule. They adapted without learning. Witte and Stolypin diagnosed the ills of the society with great acumen. Had their efforts to fashion a reformist-syncretist Russia not been sabotaged from all sides, they might have succeeded in rationalizing the country. By the time they acted, the mutually antagonistic forces of the opposition were already too powerful. Social mobilization had already proceeded too far and produced too many unassimilated people to allow collective learning to halt the decay. Yet we must remember that the growing middle classes were not totally alienated from the regime, that the peasantry and the workers did not massively resist conscription until 1916, and that they fought Germany, Austria, and Turkey courageously for three years. Had the Allied Powers in 1917 immediately allowed Russia to make peace with the Central Powers instead of prodding the Provisional Government to continue the carnage, Lenin might have been unable to rally the forces that later enabled him to overthrow Kerensky. Had Nicholas II not been influenced by Rasputin . . . the list of might-have-beens is a long one. Even if it is all but certain that traditional syncretism could not have rationalized Russia under any circumstances, it is by no means certain that reformist syncretism was equally doomed. Nonetheless, it remains clear that if the "national question" did not cause the events of 1917, it certainly contributed heavily to them. For peasants and workers on the periphery of the empire, the issue was not "land and peace" or national self-determination but national autonomy so as to seize the land and make peace.

COMMUNIST RULE CONVERTS THE EMPIRE INTO A NATION-STATE (1917-1953)

Proletarian Internationalism, Russian Nationalism, or Multiethnic Federation? True, Marxism-Leninism regards all nationalisms as a bourgeois ideology that will enter the dustbin of history with the death of capitalism. Lenin and his generation of Bolsheviks did not respect nationalism as such, but they recognized its motivating power in the minds of the as yet unformed proletariat. Hence they realized that they could channel and use for their own purposes nationalisms that clearly were part of the social reality of their followers. They did so by appearing to make concessions to national autonomy and national self-determination—much as in the czars' devotion to "nationality"—while making the national aspira355

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

tions of minorities serve the larger purpose of socialist transformation— the "orthodoxy" of Uvarov—and enhance the power of the Communist Party (CPSU)—"autocracy" relabeled. The seventy years of communist rule over non-Russians were to reenact the ambivalence of the czars, their hesitation between ruthless Russianization and toleration of ethnic diversity that was really designed to wean minorities away from their native cultures, benign Russification. Measured in terms of bilingualism among the non-Russians, czarist policies of Russification and of Russianization scored only spotty successes. The Soviet leaders did no better until the 193os. As time went on, Great Russians were to become just barely a majority in their own state even as their communist leaders occasionally asserted the leading role of Rus. Their precarious cultural status is shown in table 7-5. The CPSU under Lenin and Stalin was committed, first of all, to rapid industrialization, urbanization, and state-building—the consolidation of centralized control. It relied on science and technology as the key to progress; therefore it was committed to ridding Russia of religion as antithetical to material-scientific thinking and to the furthering of literacy and advanced education. This would result, eventually, in the evolution of a "new socialist man," the transcendence and disappearance of classes, and the full equality of races and genders. Even though, in principle, preserving the sanctity of nation-states was not part of the communist agenda, practical circumstances as well as beliefs compelled Lenin to make preservation of the existing Russian state the core of his policy.27 Foreign military interventions and monarchist rebels threatened the physical survival of the new regime. Proletarian internationalism proved to be no help because successful communist revolutions failed to materialize elsewhere. Preserving much of the old Russian state as the main communist base was the best option. A short digression into the semantics of "nationalism" in the Russian language is necessary here to demonstrate the daring innovation Lenin offered. Nationalism in Marxist parlance is, normally, a dirty word. Yet, as we saw, most Bolsheviks accepted a primordial notion of nationalism in describing the sentiments of their subjects. Stalin's famous definition of "nation" as it appears in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is entirely primordial. This acceptance came to connote an approval of nationalism. Later Soviet ethnographers offered a theory, officially taken over by the CPSU, 27 Yuri Slezkine argues that Lenin and his associates approved of "good" (oppressed) nations and their nationalities, while opposing only the "bad" bourgeois varieties. All Soviet nationalities qualified as oppressed nations. See Slezkine, 'The USSR as a Communal Apartment," Slavic Review (Summer 1994): 414-52.

356

Russia and Ukraine Table 7-5. Distribution of nationalities (in % of total populations) 1897a

Populations (millions) Russians Ukrainians Poles Belorussians Jews Tatars Kirgiz Kazakhs Azeris Germans Lithuanians Latvians Uzbeks Armenians Georgians Moldavians All others

1959b

1989b

125.68

208.82

44 18 6

55 18 >1

285.74 51 16 >1

5 4 3 3 3 1 1 1 1 >1 >1 >1 >1 —

4 1

4 1

2

2

>1

>1

2

3

1 >1 >1 >1 3 1 1 1 9

2

>1 1 >1 6 2

1 1 9

SOURCE: Census figures for 1897 and 1959 as given in David Lane, Politics and Society in USSR (New York: New York University Press, 1978), p. 433. 1989 statistics from Ben Fowkes, The Disintegration of the Soviet Union (New York: St. Martin's, 1997), p. 201. NOTE: >1% at all times: Chuvash, Mordvinians, Turkmenians, Bahkirs, Estonians, and 103 other nationalities numbering not more that 250,000 each. Note change in boundaries in 1918 and 1945. Rounding error = 1%. a Defined by language. b Defined by "nationality."

that every culture constitutes an ethnos that must go through fixed historical stages until it reaches the stage of communism; during its capitalist phase it is inevitable that it should take the form of a nation-state. Political evolution was thus married to a (temporary) legitimatization of all the self-conscious cultural entities found in the USSR. Their national selfconsciousness was considered legitimate but not overt nationalism that tended toward secession. Nobody spoke of a "Soviet nationalism" because

357

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

multiculturalism is incompatible with a primordial base; the collective identity promoted by the state was described as "Soviet patriotism."28 Which integralist-national myth was best suited to the task of nationstate building: (1) sanctifying the coming communist utopia, (2) honoring the Russian people, or (3) preaching the happy harmony of the many diverse ethnic groups that, by now, were being aroused into becoming nation-states? No final choice was ever made. Soviet leaders floundered among them. The first alternative was served by federation among units defined in ethnic-territorial terms, designed to prevent the secessionist implication of the last alternative. The stress on Russification—gradual acculturation and assimilation of minority cultures—bespeaks the second. None of our five paths to nation-statehood fits Soviet nation-state building. It is appropriate to use 1917 as the origin of a brand-new process of creating a nation-state because of the Soviets' professed aim of destroying the old polity. Unlike Types A and B, there was no old state to inherit because Lenin's revolution abolished it. Unlike Types C and D, the Soviets used the existing nationalisms as instruments of manipulation, not as genuine definers of collective identities. And instead of initially seeking compromises with the old culture, they set out to destroy it. The Soviet nationalism that became the official myth eventually was mainly integral; but it came to include syncretist Russian themes as it shunted nonRussian ones to the sidelines. All this proved to be jerry-built. No theme and no point of emphasis was ever final. Full rationalization was never achieved in the peripheries. The crash of the system in 1991 illustrates why a Type E is needed to explain transitions to nation-statehoods not described by the more familiar ones, when communist leaders turned themselves into nationalist ones. "National in Form, Socialist in Content" This was the core slogan of Stalin's approach to the putative nationalism of non-Russians. It meant that as long as the imperative to build a unified socialist nation-state was being conveyed everywhere and to everyone, the form of the message was unimportant. Hence the USSR could tolerate many cultures as long as all marched in step with the dictates of the CPSU. Local cadres could command local forces, local languages could be fostered, and people could folk-dance until the early hours of dawn—as long as the goals of successive five-year plans were met and anti28 Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, pp. 230-34, 238. Tishkov argues that since 1991 these semantic understandings remain unchanged. Most people equate appeals to "Russian nationalism" with fascism.

358

Russia and Ukraine Russian references were avoided.29 But just to make sure, the top ranks of local communist parties, professional positions, and government offices were always staffed by Slays or Russified local elites. In Soviet parlance all ethnic groups were "nationalities"; the larger ones had their own union republics, the smaller ones autonomous republics or regions within union republics. None was culturally homogeneous; Stalin gerrymandered many of them in such a way as to impede the formation of clear majorities, though one group in each republic was designated the "titular majority" and given special status. Only in Armenia, Georgia, and Lithuania did the titular and the numerical majority coincide. Stalin, unlike Lenin, who remained committed to the equality of all constituent nationalities, created an overarching identity, the only true nation, the Soviet People (sovietskii narod). The only legitimate nationalism was to be adherence to the Soviet people. This version of the national myth stressed the commonality of experience in building socialism and communism and of repelling foreign invaders, in the quest for the achievement of "socialism in one country," after the hope of world revolution was abandoned by the CPSU leaders. This myth suggested that people will identify with a Soviet culture still being formed and accept Soviet citizenship while continuing their adherence to their nationality. But Stalin failed to live up to this ideal. In the late 193os he purged "bourgeois-nationalist" leaders who insisted on challenging his formulas. With war likely by 1940, however, the official national myth was changed to reenthrone Great Russians as the true leaders of the country, as the bearers of the main culture, as the defender of the revolution and the Soviet fatherland. They, not the other nationalities, were to be seen as the true modernizers, the heirs of Peter I. When Germany invaded in 1941, the conflict was called "the great patriotic war." And when it was over, accompanying the westward march of the Red Army, Pan-Slavism was revived to undergird the mission of communism to remake eastern Europe. Non-Russian groups were subjected to relentless compulsory social mobilization. One result was the rapid recruitment of local leaders into the respective communist parties and their successful co-optation into the totalitarian system. Another was a huge increase of people with some modern education and a growth of "titulars" in public services, thanks to a policy of favoring them in school recruitment. Social mobilization was 29 E. A. Rees, in "Stalin and Russian Nationalism," in Hosking, ed., Russian Nationalism, pp. 77-106, shows Stalin's often self-contradictory and inconsistent and self-serving professions of Russian nationalism, alternating with more orthodox Leninist formulations. His open embrace of Slavophile and primordial themes is confined to the World War II period. The use made of Ivan the Terrible as a Russian hero was equally instrumentally motivated. See Maureen Perric, "Nationalism as History," in ibid., pp. 107-27.

359

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

linked directly to both Russification and Russianization and, therefore, by the 197os gave rise to resentments that created an opposition hostile to the Soviet system. In parts of Central Asia this mode of governance was hardly distinguishable from colonial regimes elsewhere.3° The same can be said of the hegemony of titulars over citizens of other nationalities in their respective republics. All education for Russians living outside the RSFSR was in Russian; local languages were used for the non-Russian population, but only in primary schools. Thereafter Russian became compulsory. Languages spoken by groups not recognized as "titular" tended to disappear; those of titulars remain popular even where Russian is widely spoken as a second language. In general, the adoption of Russian goes hand in hand with urbanization, access to higher education, occasionally with conversion to Orthodoxy, mixed marriages, and the intensity of interethnic contact. Assimilation into Russian culture—Russianization—has been enormous no matter what the official national myth suggested. Yet the Soviet policy of "national in form" had the unanticipated result of creating national identities where none had existed before, especially in Central Asia and the Caucasus." The Soviets made many people literate by first systematizing the local languages and reducing them to a written form. They made non-Europeans self-conscious about their origins by writing down local histories and folk tales. The consequences of these measures became fully apparent only in 1991. World War II resulted in major changes in the Soviet system of patriotic education. During the first two decades of communist totalitarianism the schools sought to discredit everything about the prerevolutionary past. They humiliated all religions, but most prominently the Orthodox Church, in the hope of weaning people away from religious practices. Czardom and all its doings were denounced, if not ignored. It was as if the history of Russia had begun in 1917. Recognizing that these efforts had failed to eradicate older beliefs and values, Stalin resanctified the prerevolutionary past by changing the emphasis. Czarist leaders who had contributed to the modernization of Russia were lauded as heroes. So were military commanders who had defeated the French, the Ottomans, or the Poles. Scientists, writers, inventors, and artists of prerevolutionary days were resurrected and " For a detailed account of this process, see Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone, Russian Nationalism in Central Asia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 197o). " On Russification and assimilation generally, see Jeremy Azrael, ed., Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York: Praeger, 1978); Lubomyr Hajda and Mark Beissinger, eds., The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Policy and Society (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 199o); Andreas Kappeler, ed., Die Russen (Cologne: Markusverlag, 199o).

3 6o

Russia and Ukraine praised as major contributors to the common culture even though they had earlier been denounced as reactionaries. The CPSU had attempted to separate religions from the linguistic and racial contexts in which they were embedded. "National in form" did not include respect for Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, or Christianity. Again, when war broke out in 1941, this policy was abandoned in favor of giving grudging recognition to the community-building aspects of religious institutions. Once the war was won, the CPSU returned to the earlier policy of wrenching religion from its cultural context. Russians and members of some national minorities fought heroically during the war, suffering casualties estimated to have reached 20 million people killed (including civilians). They accepted conscription unflinchingly. However, some minorities took advantage of the war to rebel against the system. Large numbers of Ukrainians fought for the Germans. So did many people in the Baltic republics who, moreover, were active participants in the Holocaust along with Belorussian and Ukrainian collaborators. Both subscribed to racist-integralist ideologies stressing antisemitism along with anticommunism. In some instances, guerrilla units supported by the United States continued to fight the Soviets for several years after the end of the war. No wonder Stalin could say in his famous toast of 1945: "I want to offer a toast to the health of our Soviet people and, above all, to the Russian people. I drink, above all, to the health of the Russian people because it is the outstanding nation of all the nations belonging to the Soviet Union."32 When Stalin died in 1953, much to the relief of his colleagues in the Politburo, it seemed as if Soviet nationality policy had successfully rationalized the multiethnic state. Much evidence exists that the success was achieved only with the help of mass murder and forced relocations. Soviet reannexation of the Baltic countries was bloody. In Estonia alone the Soviet leaders executed two thousand people and deported nineteen thousand. Unknown hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who had joined the Germans were executed after 1945. Hundreds of thousands of Tatars, Volga Germans, and Chechens were forcibly resettled in Central Asia because they were not trusted. In the Caucasus Sufi brotherhoods continued to keep alive the spirit of Muslim resistance to the official atheism even though mainstream Muslim officials had been co-opted by the state just as the leadership of the Orthodox Church had. Moreover, many Great Russians informally identified the notion of the "Soviet people" with the hegemony of Rus. " Kappeler, Die Russen, p. 194. My translation.

361

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Rationalization under Integralism Judgments about rationalization under conditions of totalitarian control are hazardous if absence of opposition alone is used as the criterion. Seven of our sixteen measures of rationalization depend on observations of consensus. Our coding in 195o gives us a score of 6g percent, the highest ever achieved by any regime in Russia as of that date. It must be stressed, therefore, that the consensus recorded refers to agreement within the CPSU after that organization had been repeatedly and bloodily purged. Another such purge was avoided only by the death of Stalin and possibly the killing of the police chief Lavrenty Beria by his colleagues on the Politburo.33 What policy successes are responsible for the relatively high score? Stalin and CPSU in 1931 abandoned the earlier policy of rigid egalitarianism and the persecution of bourgeois class remnants. School admissions, appointments to white-collar jobs, and other personnel decisions had been based strictly on class origins. Discourse in party and government had increasingly become less theoretical and literate as party membership came to reflect proletarian culture during the civil war. Uneducated people, finding themselves incumbents in important bureaucratic positions, became more and more determined to defend their "tur' against others, resulting in massive administrative inflexibilities and inefficiency. In industry and agriculture strict canons of equality led to losses in productivity that Stalin sought to combat with his renewed emphasis on expertise, technical training, and material incentives rewarding high performance. Striking a cultural compromise with surviving bourgeois values in the interest of rapid modernization of industry, the CPSU not only " The only serious public opinion study available for the Stalin period is Alex Inkeles and Raymond Bauer, The Soviet Citizen (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). The authors claim and I agree that "even a totalitarian system cannot operate effectively unless there is considerable congruence between its institutions and objectives and the prevailing ideological orientations of the people. In the Soviet Union there is probably more congruence than many like to think" (p. 233). They also found that the younger generation expresses this congruence more than the older (p. 274), that congruence increases with repetitive job performance (pp. 289-90), and that collectivism and paternalism are traditional Russian values to which people object only when they feel that the regime does not correctly implement them (p. 291). All subsequent quantitative references to public satisfaction before 1953 used in this section are taken from this source. Later public opinion surveys confirm much of this analysis. "Every survey ... reveals both discontent with and disagreement over the state's political controls over its citizens, from Stalin to Gorbachev. People called for a degree of liberalization even in the Stalin years, but they were at odds over the specifics. By 1991 they were still at odds; but their disagreement now had a more pronounced generational cast to it." Donna Bahry, "Society Transformed?" Slavic Review (Fall 1993): 54o. The same author also notes that, by and large, half or more of the population approved of the organization of the economy throughout the Soviet period. Nor could she pinpoint any clear change in the core values entertained by the Soviet people. 362

Russia and Ukraine abandoned doctrinaire egalitarianism but also reinstituted rituals and iconographies reminiscent of religious practices by sanctifying socialist heroes, especially Lenin.34 Asked in 1940 which features they would wish to retain if the communist system were removed, well over half the public expressed satisfaction with improvements in the system of education and the public health services, whereas no enthusiasm was shown toward other policies of the government. Industrial development was very impressive despite deliberate refusal to produce many consumer goods, thanks largely to the abandonment of rigid egalitarianism and proletarian class values. Agricultural development, however, was fatally damaged because of the widely resisted collectivization campaign. By 1940 6o percent of peasants expressed a desire to change collective farming if communism were to go, whereas only a quarter were opposed to terror, injustice, and "absolutist" state organizations! Foreign policy became consensual after the great purges of the 193os. When Lenin and Stalin downplayed the international revolutionary role of the USSR, there developed a left-Bolshevik opposition to socialism-in-onecountry. Thereafter Stalin's joining the antifascist West, followed by his pact with Hitler in 1939, no longer aroused domestic opposition since opponents did not live to express it. During the war Stalin dissolved the Comintern as a demonstration of his abandonment of world revolution. Nor was there expressed dissent when the USSR recognized independent Israel in the hope of acquiring a client state in the Middle East, followed by the search for close Arab allies when that initiative failed. Did the USSR become an imperialist power after 1945? Yes. Did Stalin initiate the cold war with the United States and bring about the diplomatic bifurcation of the world into two hostile camps that prevailed until 1989? Not without much help from the United States. In both instances, after 1947 the policies associated with these events were based on the full acquiescence of the CPSU, though in the immediate postwar years intellectual moderates who believed in "convergence" of communist and capitalist institutions faced dogmatists who denounced these views as unMarxist. The Soviet Union's victory in 1945 was translated almost immediately into the compelled communization and de facto annexation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, over the bitter opposition of the United States, which considered these steps a violation of 34 Stalin demolished the unfinished thirty-three-story temple of Christ the Savior (begun in 183o to give thanks to the victory over Napoleon) in order to build a Lenin Memorial equally high, to be topped with a Lenin the size of the Statue of Liberty. Never completed, the memorial became an outdoor swimming pool. Yeltsin, as part of his overture to the Orthodox Church, undertook to complete the original plan for a church.

3 63

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

inter-Allied agreements made at the end of World War II. The victory also included the violent subjection of the three Baltic countries and the establishment of a near-protectorate over Finland. Victory was extended to serious military pressure against Greece, Turkey, and Iran and, in 195o, encouraging North Korea to attempt the conquest of South Korea. All these forays, except the expansion into east Europe, triggered successful American military responses. So had the Soviet blockade of West Berlin, the most dangerous direct military challenge of the West before the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Finally, though the Chinese Communist Party defeated its domestic enemies without much Soviet help, Stalin concluded a close alliance with Mao Zedong on the latter's victory. Stalin defended the expansion of the Soviet Union as defensive movements against Western imperialism, at the same time invoking Pan-Slav and proletarian-internationalist justifications. He seemed to have expected as inevitable a new global war pitting "monopoly capitalism" (the Western alliance) against "socialism" (the Soviet-Chinese alliance). A class-based theory of international politics guided his reasoning. Stalin declared that the whole world must choose between the capitalist and the socialist way, and proclaimed the USSR the leader of the global socialist camp just as the United States made itself the leader of the opposite side.35 Once the cycle of suspicion was initiated, arms and alliance racing followed, punctuated by unrelenting mutual hostile propaganda. Stalin's rule was not entirely devoid of legitimacy. Possibly, legitimacy was maintained by the very uneven role played by the state in various regions of the country. Links between Moscow and many outlying areas remained weak. The CPSU was unable to penetrate and control all social groups and organizations equally thoroughly at that time. The downgrading of proletarian class origin as a road to success and entitlement clearly aided the feeling of legitimacy. Members of minorities did not, in general, express more hostility toward the regime than did Russians; collective farmers were uniformly the least satisfied. Did Stalin Learn? The short answer is no, but he was a master adapter. Learning would be evident if Stalin, as the system's sole interpreter of "objective truth," had been able to reinterpret the basic ontological principles of Marxism35 In the immediate postwar years some Soviet economists developed a doctrine—eventually denounced by the CPSU—of the gradual mellowing of capitalism and the disappearance of contradictions between the capitalist and socialist camps. By 193o Stalin himself had developed the notion of the "world correlation of forces," a kind of balance sheet of the military/economic/ideological strength of the respective camps, which allowed the USSR to negotiate and even ally with members of the capitalist camp when the USSR was thought to have a slight edge in the balance. He made no use of this after 1945.

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Leninism to bring them into line with consensual scientific knowledge and to justify changes in political objectives by such cognitive shifts. He never did so. He treated science as an adjunct of ideological expediency except when it was clearly needed for national defense. Stalin's Leninism lacked appreciation for nuance and discourse. He strongly believed in the dominance of unchanging "scientific" laws of history. But he was conscious of the need to adapt to them in his eagerness to transform Soviet life. Stalin therefore justified practical changes in policy by rewriting party doctrine and legitimating the new doctrine on the basis of the eternal laws only he interpreted. Unlike Lenin and his generation of revolutionaries, Stalin did not think in terms of Enlightenment rationality and discourse; he followed a formalistic creed and altered the details as circumstances seemed to demand. In principle he believed in the supremacy of revolutionary will. But he modified this creed by preaching that the CPSU was a needed constraint on revolutionary spontaneity; and he urged relativism in how to appraise actual social conditions requiring revolutionary change. Hence extensive practical and cognitive adaptation was made possible, but not basic learning.36 Among Stalin's important adaptations we find the following. He institutionalized the idea of socialism-in-one-country. He invented the idea of the Soviet people. He elevated the role of the state and of the Russian people as defenders against "capitalist encirclement" in lieu of relying on the will of the proletariat and the vanguard role of the Party. He accommodated minority discontent with his nationality policy, at least for a while. We count these as adaptations because they helped rationalize the country. They must be juxtaposed to other innovations that had the contrary effect, such as the institutionalized terror and the ideologized mistreatment of science. TOWARD DERATIONALIZATION (1953-1984) By 197o, under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, the USSR attained a rationalization score of 68 percent, the highest in its history. The harsh" This account is based on T. R. Rigby, Stalin (Washington, D.C.: Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, 1983), and Robert C. Tucker, The Soviet Political Mind (New York: Praeger, 1963). One might argue that the idea of the "correlation of forces," because it abandons the inevitability of the international class struggle, constitutes an early example of learning. Learning was impeded by the extreme compartmentalization that governed the sharing of information inside the CPSU and the government. Customarily, ministries were protective of their own information, and the military refused to release any to civilians. Gorbachev complained that as a member of the Politburo he was kept from seeing the military budget until he became general secretary of the CPSU. See Franklyn Griffiths, "Attempted Learning," in George Breslauer and Philip Tetlock, eds., Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991). 365

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est features of totalitarian rule had been dismantled, industry was booming, the economy experimented with a more relaxed system of central planning, ever more people had access to higher education, Soviet achievements in space science were astounding the world. These trends were started by the major reforms launched by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64). The cold war was yielding to détente because the notion of peaceful coexistence with capitalism took the place of the image of two scorpions shut up in a bottle. Class warfare imagery became a thing of the past. The autonomous power of science and technology was increasingly seen as the engine of human progress, including socialist progress. Despite these trends, which suggest that extensive social learning had occurred after Stalin's death, the Soviet Union was seen by its own leaders as being in deep crisis when Brezhnev died in 1982. What was happening to the country and to the myth of the Soviet people? Part of the story is told by tables 7-6 and 7-7. Remaking the Communist Party Khrushchev's reforms were a direct challenge to the "correct line" insistently defended by Stalin's CPSU. Khrushchev wanted to reduce concentration of power in the economic ministries in order to lessen bureaucratic dominance and to empower the masses. In foreign affairs the recognition of the Third World as a domain belonging to neither camp but open to peaceful conversion to socialism fundamentally challenged what remained of the global revolutionary mission of the CPSU and the Soviet armed forces. So did the serious turn to international arms control and the search for means to relax tensions with the West. There was talk of "socialist legality" after Khrushchev publicly exposed the horrors of Stalinism. A limited degree of cultural freedom also was allowed. The Party, after having been a hierarchic monolith ruled by Stalin, once more broke into competing factions pitting reformers against stalwarts. Its former heroic role challenged from within, the CPSU during the 197os developed into little more than a racket for rewarding the clients of the powerful with material goods and secure status. Private ends took the place of the public goal of working for communism, a shift that entailed practices of demanding and extending favors later denounced as "corruption." This stigma came about because Brezhnev sought to restore the CPSU's elite status without being able to find a commensurate heroic role for it. Intraparty squabbling, in turn, entailed a decision-making style in the Politburo that involved continuous bargaining, constantly shifting coalitions, and competitive bidding by leaders for support to constituent 366

Table 7-6. Soviet Union: Indicators of modernization 1 995

Population (millions)

1930

1960

1980

165.7 (1932)

212

264

Income per capita Government expenditure (% of GNP) Defense Education Health, social services Steel production (million tons)

(Russia only) 147

2,650 (1994 $)

32.4 (1940) 13.1 11.1

1 3.3 14.2 20.1

5.8 13.6 20.0

5.9 (1932)

91.0 (1965)

103

Agricultural production (% of GDP)

1 4.5 (1994) N/A

54.1 (1 994)

9

7 (1994)

Industry (% of GDP)

54

38 (1994)

Services (% of GDP)

37

55 (1994)

Student enrollment (per 1,000 urban pop. over to years) Higher education Secondary Primary

40 (1959) 429 (1959)

93 (1979) 630 ( 1979) 100

106

Doctors (per o,000 pop.)

20

37.5

Labor force in industry (% of total)

5.4 (1926)

28.6

44.7

42 (1990)

Labor force in agriculture (% of total)

83.2 (1926)

41.9

16

14 (1990)

SOURCE: Data on 1932 population from Alec Nove, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R, 2d ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1989), p. 170. Data on 1994 GNP per capita, World Development Report 1996 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1996), p. 189. Data on 1932, 1965, 1980 steel production from Nove, Economic History, pp. 183, 347, 371. Data on 1980, 1994 (14.5 + 54.1) government expenditure (defense + social services), World Development Report 1996, p. 215. Data on 1980, 1994 agriculture, industry, and services, World Development Report 1996, p. 211. Data on 1960, 1980 primary education and labor force in industry and agriculture, World Bank Tables, 32d ed., vol. 2, Social Data (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), p. 139. Data on 1990 labor force in industry and agriculture, World Development Report 1996, p. 195. Data on 1960, 1980, 1990 railroads, World Development Report 1994, p. 144. Data on 1926 labor force in industry and agriculture from R. W. Davies, From Tsarism to the New Economic Policy: Continuity and Change in the Economy of the USSR (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 251. NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained.

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS Table 7-7. Soviet Union: Indicators of social mobilization 1960

1980

1995

Urbanization (%)

49

63

73 (1994)

Literacy

98

98

Radios (per 1,00o pop.)

205

481 (1975)

TV sets (per 1,0o0 pop.)

22

21 7 (1975)

Telephones (per 1,000 pop.)

N/A

67 (1975)

Newspapers (circulation per thousand pop.)

172

1930

57 (1926)

SOURCE: 1960, 1980 newspapers, World Bank Tables, 32d ed., vol. 2, Social Data, p. 139. Data on 1994 urbanization, World Development Report 1996, pp. 188, 205, 195.

NOTE: Dates in parentheses are actual dates for which data were obtained.

groups in the Party's Central Committee. In this fashion the armed forces, certain branches of industry and agriculture, and some of the many research institutes created by Khrushchev and Brezhnev acquired positions superficially akin to interest groups in democratic polities.37 Conflict over the Command Economy and the Controlled Society

Reformers in the USSR, after 1953, were committed to making the economy cater to consumer demands, to raise standards of living rather than invest everything in capital-goods industry. Further, after the sacrifices made by the public during the war years, the leadership was agreed that the attainment of the communist utopia demanded that the USSR catch up with and surpass the capitalist West. The question that deeply divided leaders and factions of the CPSU was how much centralized control ought to be removed in order to achieve the objectives and how

37 My account relies on Robert C. Tucker, The Marxian Revolutionary Idea (New York: Norton, 1965); Richard D. Anderson, Public Politics in an Authoritarian State (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993); and especially Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). Khrushchev spoke of the need to include the "party laity" in the apparat and used the phrase "state and party of the whole people," a policy countermanded by Brezhnev.

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much technological and managerial knowledge ought to be borrowed from the capitalists. Until the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev as CPSU general secretary in 1985 nothing like a consensus was achieved. The Soviet militaryindustrial complex fought bitterly for the continuation of its hegemony over economic policy and thus prevented adequate new investments in consumer-goods industries. Various Soviet leaders had advocated other priorities; none had been able to hold to a given line for long. The fault lines of conflict were always over these issues: should more (or less) decentralization in economic decision making be allowed? Should the role of the Party be reduced (or expanded) vis-a-vis the power of the technical bureaucracy? Khrushchev's and N. Kosygin's preference for the cautious introduction of decentralization clashed with the choices of Brezhnev and M. Suslov; Brezhnev's preference for technocratic administration collided with Khrushchev's penchant for populism and the right of the public to criticize the administrators. Yet nobody favored the encouragement of organizations of farmers and of workers that resembled those of the West. Instead, the leadership encouraged the formation of elaborate informal patron-client networks that spanned ministries, enterprises, collective and state farms, and research institutes, as well as creating links across these entities. These networks functioned as informal markets for goods and services; they were tolerated even though they conflicted with the official economic plan. Since only members of the Party nomenklatura had access to the benefits associated with these networks, those left outside started to complain bitterly about official corruption, favoritism, and neglect of the public good. The clear lack of administrative cohesion could not have aided the improvement of legitimacy. Khrushchev had scrapped the economic ministries and given the power to make decisions to regional councils. Brezhnev repudiated the change and reestablished centralized ministries. Rival leaders competed by offering different priorities for investment choices, only to have the victor's preference reversed by the next successful challenger. None of the many attempts to reform agriculture and industry proved successful. Constant shifts of personnel, conforming to the line that happened to be the dominant one in the party apparatus, also complicated orderly administration of reforms.38 Much less doubt characterized the way society continued to be controlled, though things were clearly not the same as under Stalin. No constitutional principle of 38 This account relies heavily on George W. Breslauer, "Soviet Economic Reforms since Stalin," Soviet Economy (July—September 199o): 252-80.

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political succession developed. Although losers in the struggles for top leadership no longer risked their lives, they sacrificed continuing influence in affairs. So did the members of their networks in the state bureaucracy and the Party. Competition among top leaders for preeminence was responsible for much debate and conflict over policies, domestic as well as foreign. Brezhnev, apparently eager to reduce popular expectations about the rate of improving economic performance, sought to "militarize" education and other forms of socialization, attempting, without much success, to use intensified Soviet nationalism as a source of regime legitimacy. Military-patriotic training was made compulsory in secondary schools; "voluntary" civilian units to help with military tasks were formed; civil defense training became part of primary school curricula. Consensus continued on the need to keep religion marginal to public and private life, even though there was increasing recognition that the regime had failed to extirpate religiosity. Yet there was growing disagreement over the tolerance of dissent. With the abolition of rule-by-terror, cautious expressions of unorthodox opinions in art, literature, and music were no longer repressed, though censorship continued in force. It was only when such expressions of opinion were deemed by the censors to challenge official values, to question the national myth, that repression was applied once more. There was no toleration of political dissent. Moreover, certain groups, notably Jews, were singled out for suspicion of disloyalty. Instead, something Western observers labeled "crypto-politics" was institutionalized. Instead of all decisions coming down hierarchically from top fora, the informal patron-client networks took the place of formal Party organization. Goals and policies were signaled from patrons to subordinates through unofficial understandings regarding promotions, physical rewards, and status. Nonetheless, these changes—though associated with "corruption"—resulted in a loosening of Party discipline and elan. They offered "wider scope for individual and groups to further particular interests or ideals independent of, or even contrary to, the intentions of the supreme leadership."39 39 T. H. Rigby, "Traditional, Market, and Organizational Societies and the USSR," World Politics ( July 1964): 556. See also his "Politics in the Mono-Organizational Society," in Andrew Janos, ed., Authoritarian Politics in Communist Europe (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1976), pp. 31-80. Stephen White suggested that communist systems can sustain legitimacy even in the absence of adequate economic performance by increasing popular participation, i.e., by relaxing totalitarian control. Thus, the CPSU doubled its membership from 3.6 percent of the Soviet population in the mid195os to 6.7 percent in the mid-I98os, from 32 percent of working-class background to 44.4 percent. It also opened itself to criticism by encouraging letters to the editor. "Economic Performance and Communist Legitimacy," World Politics (April 1986): 462-82. I remain agnostic about his claim.

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Thus, no formal learning took place in this era, and even the many attempted adaptations often failed to bear fruit, with the remarkable exception of foreign policy behavior. No consensual knowledge developed. Learning was impeded by the frequent changes in the ruling coalitions, the associated instability of core personnel, and the public competition among leaders for general support. Ideological conflicts over what constituted an "authentic" socialist identity did not help. Neither did the unresolved argument over technocratic leadership as opposed to popular engagement. The moderate legitimacy rating enjoyed by the leadership must be due to the gradual improvement of physical welfare.4° In any event, even as top leaders were unable to agree on the core issues of communism, small epistemic communities of specialists favoring markets and openness to the outside world coalesced in the various institutes of the Academy of Science. They came into their own when Gorbachev initiated glasnost and perestroika in the 198os. The Inconsistent Commitment to Science Marxism-Leninism, in its commitment to dialectical materialism as its core ontology and epistemology, assigns a special place to science (and technology) as an important engine of human progress. The convoluted path of scientific thinking in the history of Soviet ideas and research institutions, however, suggests that conflict and disagreement punctuated the true role of science in Soviet life. Throughout Soviet history there was tension between those who argued that socialist science must always be kept pure from contamination by "bourgeois" science and the USSR free from Western scientific and technological influences, and those who maintained the opposite position. Those who saw science as part of the ideological superstructure also believed in the need to separate socialist from bourgeois science. They prevailed during Stalin's rule and found their greatest success in the Lysenko episode—and the decline of Soviet genetics. Their opponents won in 1961 with Khrushchev's ruling that science was part of the material substructure, and hence ontologically 4' This interpretation is supported by the 1982 survey research reported by Brian Silver in James R. Millar, ed., Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 105-33. Two-thirds of respondents were more or less satisfied with rising living standards, and majorities approved of state health care and state ownership of heavy industry. However, large majorities complained about state control of agriculture, the need for residence permits, prohibitions on the right to strike, and the lack of rights of the criminally accused. Dissatisfaction was correlated with higher education, thus confirming Andrei Amalrik's prediction that the new class of specialists would undermine the regime by 1984. He was wrong, however, in also predicting widespread withdrawal of regime approval by the common people. See his Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? (New York: Harper & Row, 197o).

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

universal, though their victory did not reach the social sciences until glasnost.41 The dividing line between the two positions involved a very practical question. The Marxist traditionalists argued that the USSR, by following an autarkic path using its own science, will overtake the capitalist West; hence no imported technology was necessary and Soviet scientists need not seek ties with their Western colleagues. The universalists embraced the opposite choices. Until Stalin consolidated his power in the CPSU, the universalistic view still had many adherents. The czarist Academy of Science was retained without being completely purged. Much of this changed after 193o with the inroads scored by the Marxist traditionalists; selected investments by Western capitalists continued in the 193os. The commitment to technological autarky did not prevent, after 1945, the coerced presence of twenty thousand to forty thousand captured German scientists and engineers to work in the USSR. Nor did it keep Stalin from preferring nuclear lore stolen from the West by espionage to the independent research of Soviet physicists. The Khrushchev regime reversed the autarky-seeking policies and the international isolation of Soviet scientists. Brezhnev at first moved back toward the traditionalist camp but reversed course once more toward openness after 197o. In fact, it was during the Brezhnev era that a distinct theory of scienceas-progress came into prominence. It erected science and technology as an autonomous pillar of collective endeavor, essential to rapid social progress. This "scientific-technological revolution" also triggered a change in Soviet theoretical thinking about politics. The outlook favored foreign trade and foreign investment in the USSR, and went hand in hand with the notion of peaceful coexistence between capitalists and communists. Soviet analysts and many CPSU leaders became convinced that the rapid change since World War II in the technological setting of all human activities, and in the science that spawned it, betokened major changes in state priorities, under capitalism as well as under socialism. Since the trends associated with these changes were expected by many to lead to a convergence between these two systems, acceptance of a vague kind of techno-determinism resulted not only in a further relaxation of class conflict theories but also in a desire for improved relations with the capitalist world. Soviet educational policy, however, retained many contradictions. It oscillated 41 Soviet scientists and engineers took enormous pride in their nuclear power industry. They embraced the ideology that the socialist utopia would be built on cheap energy. Nonlearning was exemplified by their persistence in this belief long after the serious shortcomings of nuclear energy had become amply clear and after the West had largely abandoned it. Paul R. Josephson, Russia's Nuclear Program from Stalin to Today (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1999)•

372

Russia and Ukraine between a commitment to produce competent professionals who expect progressively higher pay and status, and a dedication to the "new Soviet man," a human being freed of all lingering bourgeois-individualist values, solely devoted to the realization of the common good and disdainful of private property. At first, the need to pursue the class struggle defined education. Thus, social psychology and educational psychology were fully separated from the biological sciences in order to strengthen the ideological emphasis of "nurture over nature." Even though Lysenko was not personally involved with this controversy, his many followers were; they were purged from the relevant research institutes after the victory of advocates of "normal science." Similarly, sociology was reinstated as a branch of science rather than of ideology during the 197os. An emphasis in education on science and technology suited the professional and the ideological points of view. In the curriculum for the eight upper years no less than 33 percent of class time was devoted to it in 1959; 46 percent of university students, in 1975, were enrolled in departments of industry/construction and transportation/communication. As education became a requirement for advancement in the system, a meritocracy of the educated emerged. Professionalism vanquished ideology in education. That outcome, however, reinforced the propagandistic emphasis, already fostered by Stalin, of considering nuclear and aerospace science the essence of the Soviet scientific genius, as an essential part of the Soviet national myth.42 No matter which emphasis was given to education, it was clear by the 198os that failure marked the effort to use the school system as a device for inculcating loyalty to the regime. Propaganda, albeit with different emphases and varying doses, in favor of the official national myth had characterized the curriculum since the revolution. Such public opinion data as are available suggest that disaffection varied directly with higher levels of education. Revolt against officially sanctioned opinions and mores became most pronounced among high school students in the 197os. Moreover, dissatisfaction with Soviet policies and institutions, 42 Most top-echelon Soviet leaders were trained as engineers and had experience in industrial management. During the 193os Stalin had already put enormous emphasis on engineering education, a trend continued by his successors, resulting in high status value being accorded to members of this profession. Physicists and rocket scientists enjoyed the highest status, partly because they could expand their resources by successfully claiming to represent the best of the Soviet mind, the arrival of the superior "Soviet man," as a key to the communist utopia, on the basis of their physical achievements. Erik P. Hoffmann and Robbin F. Laird, The "Scientific-Technological Revolution" and Soviet Foreign Policy (New York: Pergamon, 1982). Observers agree that, on the whole, Soviet education in primary and secondary school mathematics, science, and world literature was outstanding. The status of teachers was high. Nevertheless, professionals who emerged from training in this system overwhelmingly accepted the institutions of totalitarianism and adapted their professional careers to its strictures.

373

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

notably the KGB, varied directly with age. Those who never experienced much of the purges or of World War II were the most critical. No wonder nothing more was heard of the new Soviet man during the last years of Leonid Brezhnev's rule. The actual organization of scientific work was by no means systematically linked to the objectives of the state. The same forces that made for growing incoherence in the Party and in state administration also militated against the victory of scientific knowledge as consensual knowledge. The basic unit of R & D was the "institute," some run by the Academy of Science and others by ministries. There has been a constant struggle for dominance between these two organizations and between the CPSU and the research staffs. Extreme administrative segmentation prevailed. Institute-based research was kept strictly separate from the teaching of science in the universities. Rigid separation involving much secrecy was enforced between military and civilian R & D, as well as between institutes and plants in each sector. The administrative confusion regarding the chain of command was responsible for lack of certainty that the results of R & D would find actual application. Even though, in principle, institute work was subjected, as was every other organization in the USSR, to the monitoring of the in-house Primary Party Organization, institutes differed widely in their degree of autonomy from the Party, depending on the salience of the work to the state. The more important and successful organizations in the physical sciences escaped close Party supervision altogether. So did institutes that were tied into the military-industrial complex. Social science institutes, in contrast, had to trim their research to the ideological preferences of whatever crypto-political coalition subsumed them. The two major institutes responsible for advising the Politburo on foreign policy gained hardly any autonomy for their work. Consensual knowledge did emerge in the physical sciences; its development made possible some of the major arms control agreements with the West. Thus there was a definite evolution toward autonomous natural science, rejecting ideological guidance even before the advent of glasnost.43 The gradually growing ability of Soviet social scientists to experiment with nuanced constructs is evident in the changing models of thought about 43 See G. E. Skorov, Science, Technology, and Economic Growth in the Developing Countries (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1978), and S. A. Heinman, Scientific and Technical Revolution (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981). These two late-Brezhnev-era authors make arguments about economic development, technology, and politics most Western writers would find unexceptionable, but they still felt it necessary to suggest that only under communism can a perfect match of knowledge and policy be obtained. Dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov, in contrast, suggested somewhat naively in 1968 that science unpolluted by communist ideology guarantees peace, democracy, and progress everywhere. See his Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968).

374

Russia and Ukraine American political processes." (1) The instrumental Marxist model held for decades that American policy is the result of the control of the state by the bourgeoisie; there is no autonomous state because monopoly capital dominates it. The Stalinist two-camps view of international politics follows from this model. (2) A more adaptive view admitted the extreme pluralism of American politics and thus allowed the state a little autonomy. Detente is possible because "enlightened" segments of the state and some interest groups realize the futility of nuclear war. (3) This model competed with another one that accepted American pluralism and also conceded that the proletariat exerts some influence and that cross-class alliances allow the emergence of peaceful coexistence with the USSR. (4) Finally, the "Eurocommunist" model held that monopoly capitalism really no longer exists and that a fully autonomous state is able to do justice to the collective interest of a capitalist society, making possible ad hoc cooperation with the USSR. The major international relations institutes vacillated between models 2 and 3 after 1953—until Gorbachev adopted model 4—depending on which Politburo patron had to be pleased. Multinational Decentralization or Soviet People/Nation? Judging by the frequency of changing conceptions and plans, the Soviet leaders who followed Stalin were neither certain nor in agreement about ethnic politics. Aware of the dramatically higher birthrates in the non-European areas, they began to worry about the "yellowing" of the USSR. They were undecided whether the—formal—federal arrangement that gave every major ethnic group its own union or autonomous republic ought to be retained, or whether constitutional centralization was preferable. It was realized that, despite vigorous Stalinist Russianization policies, multiethnicity remained a stubborn fact. These conundra were expressed in the form of two formulas: sblizhenie, or policies of bringing about the gradual convergence of cultures, as opposed to sliianie, or assimilation, the Soviet equivalent of the melting pot. The first could, but need not, lead to the second, the melting of all national cultures into a single Soviet people and nation. Much depended on where the emphasis was placed. Khrushchev began by stopping Russianization and encouraging reindigenization of the non-Russian peoples, but he soon reversed course and advocated complete assimilation. Brezhnev, however, downplayed assimilation as being in the far future and catered to non-Russian elites by stressing policies of convergence. Andropov regretfully found that national differences would outlast class differences because he consid44 I follow the argument of Franklyn Griffiths, "The Sources of American Conduct," International Security 9, no. 2 (1984): 3-5o.

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ered them "primordial" in nature, despite modernization and social mobilization. He hoped that under "developed socialism" all these distinctions would cease to be experienced as important. None of the post-Stalinist leaders undid the earlier ethnic gerrymandering that prevented any of the federal units from having a culturally homogeneous population. Nor did they change policies of retaining Slavic cadre hegemony in most non-Slav nomenklaturas. Clearly worried about ethnic restiveness by the early ig8os, the CPSU conceded that membership in the "Soviet people" need not imply lack of attachment to one's nationality; the two identities were symbiotically linked and the national myth recognized it. Yet in reality some trends supported the idea that convergence was indeed occurring—though sometimes resented— while other trends suggested the contrary. Centralization toward a single Soviet nation was evident in constitutional developments, language policy, cultural assimilation by non-Europeans, and continuing discrimination in favor of things Russian. The constitution of 1977 declared the USSR to have entered the phase of "developed socialism." It reduced a few of the quasi-sovereign competences of the union republics but retained most despite demands in the CPSU that the new basic law lodge more power in the center. The right to secession was also retained and the "equality of nations" proclaimed. What was the status of local languages? Only the Baltic republics, Armenia, and Georgia were allowed to use the indigenous languages exclusively at all levels of education; all others had to substitute Russian at the higher grades and in universities. All curricula and textbooks were developed in Moscow; there were complaints that administrative practices in fact discriminated against non-Russian education. Russian was a compulsory subject in all non-Russian schools. Russian also was the only official language in all republics.45 Remarkably, however, while the indigenous languages consistently lost to Russian in the associated republics of the RSFSR, the fourteen other titular languages all gained at the expense of Russian in their union republics. Rural Muslims were less likely to learn Russian than other people. But the younger speakers of indigenous languages in the RSFSR, including Muslims, showed a tendency to redefine themselves as "Russian" for purposes of obtaining internal passports. Details are shown in table 7-8. By 198o, because of sharp increases in local social mobilization, a large non-Slav elite had emerged in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus. Many of its members were successfully co-opted into the nomenklatura, partly 45 Except in Estonia (as of 1955), very large numbers of non-Slays opted to attend Russian schools in preference to their own, undoubtedly to improve their access to higherstatus positions in which Russian remained the language of communication irrespective of the union republic involved.

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Russia and Ukraine Table 7-8. Population of union republics fluent in the titular and Russian languages (%) Union republic Russia Ukraine' Belarus' Uzbekistan Kazakhstan' Georgia Azerbaijan Lithuania Moldova' Latvia' Kirgizstana Tadjikistan Armenia Turkmenistan Estonia

% fluent in titular language

% fluent in Russian

78.o 77.7 75.4 40.2 77.2 86.5 85.3 67.o 62 .4 53.6 66.6 95.4 74.7 67.4

97.8 78.4 82.7 33.4 83.1 41.2 38.4 47.3 68.5 81.6 56.7 36.4 44.4 38.6 58.9

SOURCE: Compiled by Keith Darden from 1989 census data. a Republics in which percentage fluent in Russian exceeds percentage fluent in the titular language. thanks to deliberate policies of recruiting, training, and advancing local cadres irrespective of their abilities and merit. This policy was defended by Soviet leaders in the face of a rising chorus of complaints from European immigrants who felt themselves to be the victims of reverse discrimination. Moreover, the practice of giving non-Slav Party members representation in state and Party organs roughly proportional to their number in the population also aroused objections. However, the linguistic discrimination practiced by the Soviets also caused growing expressions of resentment from the local elites newly made conscious of their ethnic identity despite the favor shown them. Thus, evidence of resistance or objection to joining the Soviet nation became more and more visible. The official statistics suggest a very high rate of modernization and of social mobilization for the non-European parts of the USSR after 1950.46 This trend produced a large group of mobilized local 46 Even though official Soviet statistics, including the census, were doctored to exaggerate achievements in education, linguistic ability, and development, there is no doubt that access to higher education expanded enormously between 1959 and 1970. Officially, in the RSFSR university enrollment rose from 19 to 44 per thousand of population, in Central Asia from 13 to 35, in Azerbaijan, Latvia, and Estonia from about 21 to 45, and in Armenia from 28 to 57.

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individuals who managed to assimilate well despite the large influx of European specialists. As long as affirmative action and proportional representation in staffing managerial positions prevailed, the mobilized nonSlays were accepted provided they acted as if they were Russians. But, increasingly, they were made to feel by the European settlers that they were not. And, increasingly, they assumed the national identities that Soviet nationality policy had contrived for them and assigned to them. The internal passport system alone proved to be a bar to complete assimilation because of its assignment of a fixed national identity. Complaints were heard aplenty by 1980. The pace of economic development and specialization was determined by the national plan and ignored local preferences for more diversity. There were relatively few non-Slavic army officers, despite efforts to recruit them. Non-Slavic units were usually commanded by Slavic officers, resulting in resentment. Red Army leaders complained of the low quality of Central Asian recruits: unable to speak Russian, barely literate, and not reliably patriotic. The resulting discrimination and contempt led to more resentment. Muslims often complained of a lack of respect for them. In the Caucasus and parts of Central Asia, Sufi brotherhoods once again became centers of organized dissent, though no mass-based Muslim fundamentalism appeared. When some Soviet planners, worried by the shifting demographic balance, advocated rigorous family planning policies for the Muslim population, angry opposition forced them to drop the idea. In the Caucasus and Central Asia that resentment took the form of harassing European immigrants. The case of Ukraine deserves special attention. Soviet policy alternated between encouraging, tolerating, and repressing the use of Ukrainian in education, though Ukrainian-speaking citizens of Ukraine (as opposed to Russian, Tatar, and Jewish ones) seemed to prefer the use of their own language. Until Stalin's death demonstrations of Ukrainian cultural separateness were severely punished, even when supported by the Ukrainian Communist Party (CPU). Khrushchev, who had relied in his rise to power on CPU support, reversed these policies by allowing the Ukrainian communist leader, Petro Shelest, more autonomy from Moscow. Shelest doubled the number of Ukrainians in the CPU. But he was fired when he vigorously defended Ukrainian economic interests against the investment priorities favored by Brezhnev. Nor could Shelest prevent Brezhnev's renewed Russification of the school system. Yet, in a show of favor to a separate Ukrainian identity, the Galician irredenta was united with the republic after 1945 and Khrushchev ceded the Crimea to it even though it is inhabited mostly by Russians, a step that annoyed Great Russian nationalists, communist and dissident, but pleased Ukrainian nationalists of all tendencies. 378

Russia and Ukraine The demands of Ukrainians and other nationalities had the effect of arousing a Slavophile-flavored response among some Great Russians, equating an ethnic Russian identity with the entire multiethnic Soviet Union. They argued for the supremacy of the Soviet people over these manifestations of separatism, but they really believed in the hegemony of all things culturally Russian. Learning and the Foreign Policy of Accommodation Soviet foreign policy after the creation of a communist empire in east Europe, unlike that of many other countries, was not a major vehicle for projecting either Russian or Soviet nationalism abroad. The core issue was, Should the USSR threaten the West in order to ensure its own security and advance socialism in the Third World, or should it seek accommodation with the West, dampen the arms race, and mute competition with capitalism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America? The first alternative was based on the belief that capitalist imperialism remained the main threat to the socialist world because of the unresolved contradictions in capitalist societies. The second was derived from the belief that class conflict has abated, that capitalism will last for a long time, and that permanent competition with socialism was harmful to both. Neither view involved a sharp sense of special Soviet national identity with a global mission. The earlier intraparty consensus on foreign policy evaporated after 1953. The Khrushchev regime at first sought to relax tensions with the West, while hoping that rifts within NATO would redound to its advantage, by offering "concessions" that were expected to lead to Western counterconcessions. Austria was neutralized and the division of Germany made "permanent," apparently in the expectation that Western concessions would follow. When Khrushchev realized that he could not have a detente on his terms, he considered it necessary to join those of his colleagues and rivals who felt it desirable to again threaten the West. By 1958 he adopted an aggressive revolutionary line with respect to the Third World, stepped up nuclear arms production, attempted to dislodge the West from Berlin, provoked the break with China, and eventually supported communist Cuba to the point of triggering the missile crisis with the United States. The lesson the entire CPSU learned from that episode seemed to be, No foreign policy objective is worth a nuclear war, even if the physical and ideological correlation of forces favors socialism. The Cuban missile crisis triggered a period of serious and fruitful arms control negotiations with the United States. Moreover, economists reconsidered their way of conceptualizing relations with the West. Many began to argue that developing countries should not imitate the Soviet pattern 379

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of growth. The West no longer "needs" colonies to remain wealthy, and therefore Western investment in Third World countries is not necessarily harmful to them. By 198o some Soviet economists were analyzing events in terms of the theory of comparative advantage and were offering policy advice that recognized the emergence of a global economy. With the advent of Leonid Brezhnev the restraining logic of a bipolar balance was increasingly accepted by the Soviet elite and the limit on gains at the expense of the West recognized. Still, dissensus at first continued over the desirability of further arms racing and ideological offensives against capitalism in the Third World. Eventually, the regime became willing, after having overcome the opprobrium it earned in 1968 for stamping out democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia, to seek institutionalized detente with the West in the form of the Helsinki agreements on military confidence-building measures, economic and social cooperation, and human rights. It also embraced important bilateral pacts with the United States which stabilized the nuclear arms race. It was the United States who after 198o reignited the cold war by starting a new round of arms racing. That race caused the Soviets to fear that their notion of equally balanced power might be wrong because the USSR seemed to be the weaker despite its desperate efforts to match the American arms buildup. Until that point was recognized, however, Brezhnev followed an activist policy of intervening in Asia and Africa in order to support socialistleaning regimes and block American efforts to overthrow them. More important, the USSR became the major supplier and supporter of North Vietnam in its war with the United States. The USSR was Egypt's mainstay in its confrontation with Israel until Anwar Sadat realized in 1972 that only the United States is able to influence Israel. And in 1979 Brezhnev intervened in the ill-fated civil war in Afghanistan in order to protect a communist client. After fighting a brief border war with China over rival territorial claims, followed by the Sino-American rapprochement, Moscow sought to mend fences with Beijing. The period contains genuine evidence of collective learning as the predictions of Stalinist foreign policy ideology were not borne out by events. Soviet analysts revised their theories about force in world politics, international economics, inevitable conflicts among capitalists, and types of economic development. They jettisoned their theory of capitalist imperialism and therefore realized that military involvement in the Third World could be as deadly a swamp for them as for the United States. They "lost" in South Africa, Namibia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and other countries in which they had had hopes of establishing or protecting Leninist regimes. The inability of the Marxist Angolan regime to prevail despite heavy Soviet and Cuban help was a sobering experience. The Soviet leaders reaped no return on their investments in other countries they had hoped 38o

Russia and Ukraine

to detach from the West's influence. They learned not to burden their commitment to peaceful coexistence with deep enmeshment in Third World regional conflicts.47 The major arms control agreements concluded after 1963 bespeak another kind of learning: a belief that the stabilizing virtue of nuclear deterrence takes the place of faith in superior forces and the possibility of winning a nuclear war. After 1967 it was realized that protecting Soviet security actually demanded a certain amount of overt military cooperation with the United States. These shifts in insight and in policy were hardly ever complete, however. They always had to compete with hardline "Russia First, Confront the Imperialist West" views held by some CPSU cadres as well as by high military officials, though in the end the hard-liners always lost. Foreign policy learning also entailed the realization that institutionalized multilateral cooperation is often essential for the realization of national objectives. In the socialist Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the USSR, though the founder and by far the most powerful member, nevertheless learned not to force its allies to rubber-stamp Soviet decisions. In the post-1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the USSR—with very bad grace—accepted a multilateral review of its human rights abuses in exchange for making permanent the post1945 European boundaries. Moscow also accommodated itself to being frequently overflown and photographed by American spy satellites, thus avoiding on-site inspections. It cooperated with European regional agreements and agencies concerned with environmental protection and, after the Chernobyl disaster, the safety of nuclear power plants.

What Happened to the Soviet National Myth? The decay of the Soviet civil religion and of its national myth set in seriously some time after 197o. Until then, despite the fact that our perception is surely distorted by the heavy hand of Soviet totalitarian governance, it appears as if the USSR had been a reasonably well rationalized nation-state. Its civil religion was Marxism-Leninism, its philosophical basis dialectical materialism and all it promised in terms of a future collectivist utopia. Despite its multiethnic character, and perhaps because of " Evidence for this argument is to be found in Breslauer and Tetlock, Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, especially the chapters by Coit Blacker, George Breslauer, Ted Hopf, Robert Levgold, and particularly Steve Weber and Peter Lavoy. Also see Edward Kolodzief and Roger Kanet, eds., The Cold War as Cooperation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), for evidence of how evolving mutual perceptions turned the cold war into a cooperative game.

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the successful manipulation of non-Russians by Russians, something like cultural convergence seems to have been occurring:49 Much of this came apart during the 197os. Cynicism became rife; many CPSU officials admitted the rapidly growing popular indifference to official Marxist ideology. Many noted the slackening of enthusiastic Party work for the coming utopia, the onset of careerism and instrumental behavior within the nomenklatura. Widespread complaints of "corruption" pointed to self-serving conduct on the part of the CPSU and the state bureaucracy, leading one student to conclude that the USSR had foregone its revolutionary role and entered into the "neo-traditionalism" of a society rooted in patron-client ties.49 Renewed public interest in religion was manifest as well. The relaxation of police terror entailed the development of a few voluntary groups that escaped Party control. Some of them eventually became seedbeds of political dissent. Those who failed to satisfy the remaining police censors published underground. A so-called Russian party (or "Russists") emerged to fill the ideological vacuum. Its members worshiped the Russian countryside, folklore, and historical monuments. One wing, the fascist "Neo-Bolsheviks," professed an integral nationalism that sought to blend Leninist with racist ideas. Its followers expressed fear of racial and cultural contamination by non-Slays and complained bitterly about Russia's subsidizing the economic development of backward areas in Central Asia, though they also wanted to retain the empire. They created a mythology that placed Marxism-Leninism in the pantheon of historical Russian heroes and ideas. Several organizations and publications expressed these ideas, which apparently enjoyed the patronage of Mikhail Suslov, the member of the Brezhnev team in charge of ideology. The other Russist wing, the Neo-Slavophiles, embraced a traditionalsyncretist form of Russian nationalism. Their beliefs were anchored in an Orthodox Christian faith that disdained the existing church as compromised. Hence they advocated its renewal by severing it from the state. " For an illustration of the successful blending of communist, Russian, and Kazakh themes, see the novel by Chingiz Aitmatov, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983). I owe this reference to the sensitive work of Russell Faeges. Some observers feel that partly because of the language policy the idea of the "Soviet People" came close to becoming the actual national myth, not merely official doctrine. Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, pp. 250-55, 85-86. 49 See Jowitt, New World Disorder, chap. 4. Given these conditions, the 68 percent rationalization score for 197o is surprising. (See table 7-4.) Observers who stress the remaining repressive apparatus might question the reliability of the positive scores for civil religion, payment of taxes, peaceful change, and, above all, legitimacy. They mention such practices as barring "political" suspects from employment, housing, and freedom to travel even within the country as restraints on the desire to oppose the regime. I maintain that there was considerable legitimacy and some peaceful change, though some of it was the result of reluctance to rock the boat.

382

Russia and Ukraine The movement was antimaterialist and anti-industrial, clearly pro-rural. Neo-Slavophiles wished to purge Russian culture of all foreign influences, most prominently Marxism-Leninism. They deplored Russian domination over non-Russian peoples and were willing to give up the empire in deference to their belief in national self-determination.50 The Brezhnev regime responded very cautiously to these challenges. It began the rehabilitation of Stalin, thus pleasing the integralists. But it also tolerated the revival of the church, while allowing the publication of many Neo-Slavophile journals, thus pleasing the syncretists. In using the term sovietsky narod, it did not stress the full merger of all nationalities. Clearly, official ideology was unable to keep pace with the simultaneous evolution of popular counterideologies and of total cynicism about the system. The reformers who embraced perestroika upon Mikhail Gorbachev's assumption of the Party's leadership in 1984 had to face disgust with the poor performance of the planned economy, the fear of falling behind in the arms race, and anxiety about nuclear war threatened by the change in U.S. military doctrine. PERESTROIKA AND GLASNOST UNDO THE USSR (1984-1991) Why Was Reform Deemed Urgent? Few Western observers predicted the reform attempt launched in 1986; even fewer suspected that the Soviet Union was in deep trouble. The national crisis sensed by Gorbachev and the intellectuals who influenced his thinking was far from obvious—except in hindsight. There is still no scholarly consensus on why the Soviet system lost legitimacy, though theories abound.5' Gorbachev himself saw many things amiss, but the causal links among them remained obscure to him, too. 5° I have relied on the work of John Dunlop, The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), and later essays, as well as Dimitry Pospielovsky, "The 'Russian Orientation' and the Orthodox Church," in Pedro Ramet, ed., Religion and Nationalism in Soviet and East European Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989), pp. 81-108. Pospielovsky stresses that the Neo-Slavophiles lack the romantic optimism, the faith in collectivist institutions, and the messianic expansionism of their nineteenth-century mentors. They are defensively minded in stressing the retention of surviving moral values and opt for an authoritarianism that protects them by means of law. Ibid., pp. 104-5. These nationalist movements challenging the Brezhnev-Andropov national myth are treated in detail by Yitzhak M. Brudny, Reinventing Russia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998). 51 Gorbachev's "New Thinking" about international relations represents a theoretical refocusing of the empirical conclusions drawn during this period. His circle of Westernizing advisers discovered that there was no correlation of forces favoring the USSR and that cautious balancing would persuade the West that the USSR had given up on global expansion, thus bringing about the true détente needed for freeing the resources required for domestic reconstruction.

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The essence of his indictment was economic: the socialist economy was failing to perform, not because socialism is in error but because its practitioners failed to modernize the creed by allowing for more individualism, more room and incentive for innovation, a larger role for science and technology, a better-educated workforce, and thorough decentralization and even competition among enterprises. These innovations were held necessary because the "storming" phase of socialist construction was not appropriate for ushering in a high-consumption society. Perestroika (reconstruction) was needed to make these changes. But glasnost. (openness, open criticism) was also required to shake up a bureaucracy habituated to avoiding decisions and following orders from above. It was needed to expose the legacy of official lies that had successfully hidden the long-standing rottenness from public view, to allow for official accountability. That was the core of the reformist diagnosis and its economic prescription. An unsystematized grab-bag of other features of Soviet life also came in for criticism. Successful reconstruction was also said to require "democracy," more rights for women, more attention to the growing complaints and antisocial behavior of alienated youth. The "New Thinking" about foreign policy declared the obsolescence of the cold war and the imperative necessity for peaceful coexistence among economic systems and their blocs; it stressed nuclear disarmament. Even though the West was said still to be exploiting the Third World, it was not the duty of the USSR to remedy that situation. Multilateralism via enmeshment in international organizations was seen as the means for civilizing the West. Ever tighter interdependence was likely to guarantee peace and cooperation. Immanuel Kant could not have said it better.52

52 Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). I am not concerned with the contending theories seeking to explain the demise of the USSR. The most comprehensive of them focus on the inability of the CPSU to come to terms institutionally and ideologically with the rapid modernization of attitudes and proliberal expectations of the "new professionals" and the consequent decay of the Marxist-Leninist civil religion. Other theories—not necessarily incompatible with this school—stress imperial overreach, economic mismanagement, and the decline of the Party into "neotraditionalism." Gregory Grossman offers a largely economic account of the decay of the USSR. Theft from state enterprises led to a black "informal" economy within the official one, which led to a great deal of private wealth. This private financial power fostered massive corruption of the bureaucracy. The combination of all these factors facilitated the rise of large-scale organized crime, which in turn exacerbated corrupt practices to such an extent that the former hierarchical power of the CPSU was undermined in favor of horizontal networks of managers and administrators. These, in turn, led to growing interregional and interethnic differentials in wealth. "Subverted Sovereignty" in Stephen S. Cohen, Andrew Schwartz, and John Zysman, eds., The Tunnel at the End of the Light: Privatization, Business Networks, and Economic Transformation in Russia (Berkeley: Institute of International and Area Studies, 1998), pp. 24-50.

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The Record of Derationalization Perestroika represents a case of flawed collective learning.53 Gorbachev and his circle sensed a fundamental problem and sought—though they did not discover—a new causal principle to account for it and to put decay behind them. As late as 1989 Gorbachev thought of the Soviet method of dealing with nationalities as being a success. The argument about the obsolescence of Marxism remained sketchy; it amounted to no more than a confused endorsement of the West's ways. Consequently, the reformers adopted policies incapable of offering remedies. In fact, their timid policy response (except in foreign relations) worsened the crisis and accelerated the process of derationalization.54 Gorbachev's insights were by no means shared by all other leaders and CPSU members. The debates of the 28th Party Congress are filled with open critiques of the New Thinking, with demands for gradualism, with the need for protecting the Party's monopoly of power. Different members of the Politburo had diverse understandings of the meaning of glasnost. Some shared Gorbachev's, but others insisted that the Party retains the sole key to consensual knowledge even though they agreed with some of the proposed reforms, and still others rejected all changes. Yet the reforms continued because the epistemic community backing Gorbachev succeeded in pushing its opponents out of positions of power, egged on by new social groups called into being by glasnost.55 Things got very much worse for Soviet citizens as the regime sought to enact the perestroika reforms. Though in principle committed to the abolition of the command economy in favor of decentralization, Gorbachev in fact hesitated about introducing any radical economic changes while 53 See Peter J. Boettke, Why Perestroika Failed (New York: Routledge, 1993). Gorbachev's circle had put its faith in social learning derived from the acquisition of scientific knowledge. It made repeated references to the growth of consensual knowledge about everything, to national and international networks of like-minded experts as the makers of that knowledge. This faith is not surprising because the reformist ideas originated in state research institutes, apparently quietly encouraged by Yuri Andropov after Brezhnev's death. Members of these institutes had increasingly been in touch with their Western colleagues and had imbibed Western values. The details of these intra-elite interactions and the special role of policy intellectuals are analyzed by Jeffrey T. Checkel, Ideas and International Political Change (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997). " For evidence that there was more than "one Gorbachev," see Jowitt, "Gorbachev: Bolshevik or Menshevik?" in New World Disorder, p. 23o. Elsewhere Jowitt wrote: "Gorbachev's idea that provided an element of consistency, though not coherence, to his evolution and transformation was his attempt politically to relativize the party apparatus in relation to the soviets, the office of general secretary in relation to the presidency, Russia in relation to the other republics, and the Soviet Union in relation to Europe. His mortal problem was that these actions relativized his own power." "Real Imaginary Socialism," East European Constitutional Review (Spring—Summer 1997): 47. u This argument is developed further by George W. Breslauer, "Soviet Economic Reforms since Stalin," in Soviet Economy (July—September 199o): 271-73.

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tolerating inflation and creating expectations among consumers he was unable to meet. One reason for his inability to act was the fact that widespread opposition to marketization persisted in the state and Party organs responsible for the economy. Many officials continued to use directives from above to shore up their existing positions, not to take individual initiatives or compete; others took advantage of the directives by converting state property to their private use. Some, eager to learn, were uncritically impressed with the "Japan model" of state-guided industrial policy because it seemed to hedge against unrestrained interfirm competition, though Japanese practice hardly fit Soviet traditions. No agreement could be reached about the forms of private and collective property to be encouraged, or about the degree of privatization of the economy. Despite the commitment of the reformers to raising levels of income and consumption, the lack of clear policy resulted in increasing administrative chaos. Paralysis in Moscow triggered demands for economic autonomy on the part of some union republics. A few attempted independent monetary and foreign trade policies. The reformers spoke of the need to create a new kind of "democratic" labor discipline that stresses devotion to the job. Yet there was a phenomenal growth in voluntary organizations after the elimination of police monitoring. Some trade unions, notably the miners, began to act like trade unions in a pluralistic-democratic setting. New private entrepreneurs sprang up, though their activities were sometimes difficult to distinguish from those of the criminal syndicates that also multiplied. Protest movements about deteriorating environmental conditions were the first to assert their autonomy from Party-run organizations in 1985. They were followed by local clubs devoted to political debate and common reading, and they eventually developed into pressure groups. Then came "People's Fronts," which by 1989 had evolved into autonomist parties in the Baltic countries, the Transcaucasus, and Ukraine. Russians responded by forming similar self-protective fronts in the union republics, and the Neo-Slavophiles did the same in the RSFSR. The creation of the almost freely elected Congress of People's Deputies in 1989 spurred the birth of real political parties, some based in professional and occupational groups rather than territorial constituencies. Removal of restrictions on the Orthodox Church resulted in the emergence of Christian-oriented political groups. This surge of civic activity, however, did nothing to rerationalize the country. The new legislature was unable to legislate. Gorbachev asked for powers to rule by decree as he was elected to the newly created office of president of the USSR. Confusion over constitutional mandates failed to guarantee either peaceful change or an orderly leadership succession. 386

Russia and Ukraine Nor was there evidence of a consensual civil religion, as made plain by the cacophony that reverberated in the 28th Congress of the CPSU in 199o. The military complained that the spirit of dissent had contaminated the patriotism and sense of discipline of the troops. Draft evasion became common, as did the clandestine sale of weapons and equipment to criminal syndicates. Gorbachev had to reassure the military authorities that they alone had the power to conduct patriotic propaganda in order to reestablish discipline. Survey research disclosed that those born after 1946 professed considerably less respect for the official civil religion than their parents, though the generations agreed that the state ought to retain control over much of the economy and continue to provide free health care, subsidized housing, and lifetime guaranteed employment— just at the time when the state was cutting back on all these services! The gradual withdrawal of the state from the economy and the taming of the police, in the face of rising consumer demands, furnished a deadly medicine for accelerating derationalization.56 The End of the Multinational Empire The multicultural state disintegrated because of the unintended and unanticipated consequences of glasnost. Four of the sixteen constituent units had "joined" as a result of being conquered in 1945. Their communist parties proved to be the first to assert their disaffection from Moscow. Once some measure of electoral freedom was introduced by Gorbachev, previously repressed sentiments of opposition to Moscow resulted in parliamentary representation for the dissidents. However, the policy of according special privileges to the "titular nationality" was now challenged by the underprivileged nationalities, whose national identities had been unintentionally reified by prior Soviet policies. The principle of secession, never taken seriously before 199o, was now asserted openly. Republics even competed with one another in claiming it, including Boris Yeltsin's RSFSR. Elites in all republics complained that they were being exploited by other republics, that their resources were being squandered. As Victor Zaslaysky put it: The whole federal political-administrative system served as an elaborate structure of ethnic inequality. It divided ethnic groups into those with recognized territory and certain rank in the hierarchy of the state formations and those without such territory . . . which determined corresponding amounts 56 A poll in major cities conducted by Soviet institutes in 1989 found strong minorities questioning the leading role of the Party and/or advocating abolition of its monopoly on power. Most watched and approved of the debates of the Congress of People's Deputies, whereas many disapproved of the Supreme Soviet as too "Stalinist-Brezhnevite."

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of ethnic rights and privileges. .. . These policies proved to be essentially antimeritocratic. . They created strong dissatisfaction among minorities. . . . In many cases it led to the emergence of a potentially explosive ethnic division of labor. . . . The situation became particularly tense in republics where titular nationalities had been transformed into numerical minorities.57 Perestroika had the effect of changing the incentive structure in a way that made it seem beneficial for titular national communist leaders to "play the nationalist card" rather than remain loyal to Moscow. Without economic and career subsidies from the center, their continued ability to deliver physical and status goods to the overrepresented and privileged members of their titular ethnic group was in doubt. The decline of the Soviet state and the CPSU meant the local power base of communist leaders was endangered, unless they found another one. The substitute was the newly empowered local electorate. Glasnost did not result in the formation of all-union political parties able to challenge the CPSU. The communist parties of the republics remained in control, except in the Baltic countries and Georgia. Confronted with strong anticommunist formations clamoring for independence, the Lithuanian and Estonian communist leaders, whether of indigenous or Russian nationality, were the first to play the nationalist card. Relatively free elections took place after 1990 in almost all republics, before similar events were scheduled in the USSR. This sequence resulted in the creation of strong local parties (communist and anticommunist), many of them bent on major measures of decentralization, if not independence, before union-level parties had a chance to develop. A dynamic favoring dissolution took shape before opinion in all republics had definitely embraced the end of the USSR.58 The final blow came when Boris Yeltsin, then head of the RSFSR, proclaimed Russia's secession from the USSR, leaving Gorbachev as the president of nothing. " Quoted in Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 388-89. For their own summary of the causes of disintegration, see pp. 371-72. Suny, Revenge of the Past, offers additional explanations. According to the 197o census, more people identified with native languages, even though they could have claimed Russian as their first, than had been true in 1926. Tishkov claims that many people did not normally use the language the 1989 census listed as their "national" language. Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, pp. 88-98. For an excellent illustration of the cultural struggles between non-Slavic titular and minority populations in Azerbaijan, see Mark Saroyan, "The Karabakh Syndrome and Azerbaijani Politics," Problems of Communism (September—October 199o): 14-29. " Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, pp. 384-86. The USSR was formally dissolved, without consulting the Central Asian and Transcaucasian republics, by the ex-communist heads of the RSFSR (Yeltsin), Ukraine (Kravchuk), and Belorussia (Sushkievich) in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha agreement, in December 1991. The Baltic republics had declared their independence already. The step was protested in private by some Central Asian leaders; rumor has it that the three Slavic leaders were too drunk to know what they were doing.

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Russia and Ukraine The leading role of anticommunist nationalists in the Baltic republics in triggering the dissolution of the USSR brought to the fore a conflict over national identity that eventually infected all the former union republics: is citizenship defined by residence or by cultural roots? The fact that almost none of the republics is culturally homogeneous, and that relatively recent Slavic migrants remain influential economically and culturally, gave personal poignancy to the debate. Status, jobs, incomes, selfrespect are at stake. Advocates of an ethnic (cultural) definition of citizenship justify themselves by the alleged primordial right of the original residents, chiding the colonial-imperial role played by Slavic in-migrants. In Estonia and Latvia these migrants number between 40 and 5o percent of the population; in Moldova, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan the numbers are only slightly lower. Similar conflicts among non-European peoples abound in most of the other republics. Defenders of the civic (residential) definition of citizenship, in contrast, wish to banish historical memories of inequality and discrimination and concentrate on the present by insisting that all legal residents ought to be considered citizens of the USSR's successor states. Though the civic definition won the day officially almost everywhere, it would be foolish to dismiss the remaining resentment of "the other." Communist and dissident opinion in Russia turned sharply against the other republics. Everyone complained that they were ungrateful about the sacrifices Russians had made for their economic development.59 A Unique Path to Nation-Statehood: Type E Why can the secession of the republics from the USSR not be described by using the paths to nation-statehood that characterized other cases of secession, Types C and D? Table 7-9 summarizes them and shows the contrast with the secession of the former Soviet republics. Obviously, the former Soviet republics other than Russia do not all fit Type E equally cleanly. Most have in common one chief feature: in all but the Baltics and Georgia the secession was not the work of a disaffected counter-elite of mobilized but unassimilated anticommunists. Instead, secession involved the fully modernized who were in charge of their respective republics. True, in the Baltic countries and Georgia the seces" The soul-searching about the Russian identity during glasnost is summarized by Roman Szporluk, "Dilemmas of Russian Nationalism," Problems of Communism ( July—August 1989): 15-35. Some CPSU cadres favored the creation of a Russian nation-state on the ruins of the USSR, as opposed to those who wanted to save the empire. Each faction, in turn, was divided among those who preferred democracy and a civic definition of citizenship, as opposed to those who defined citizenship in cultural terms and were indifferent to democracy. The racist-integralist and Neo-Slavophile trends already visible in the Brezhnev years were a prominent part of the latter camp. 3 89

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Table 7-9. Types of nation-first/state-second paths to nation-statehood Types Characteristic Does state exist?

No

Yes, but weak

Yes, but weak

Counter-elite

Ambivalent about traditional values

Modern

Social mobilization

Divided between traditionals and moderns Under way

Frozen at low level

Complete in some, under way elsewhere

Mobilized/ unassimilated

Numerous, articulate

Few, articulate

Numerous victims of former oppression

sion was at first animated by mobilized-unassimilated victims of earlier Soviet repression. Very soon, however, leadership in most again passed into the hands of the ex-communist elite. Moreover, these cases cannot be considered instances of Types C or D because the conflict between modern and traditional nationalist values did not arise and because social mobilization was complete or far advanced. Type E is unique because those who remained unassimilated had chosen not to take advantage of the opportunities for assimilation offered by the old regime. They took seriously the symbolism of a special national identity the CPSU had provided for them, though in the case of the Baltic republics and parts of Ukraine no such manipulation had been required to stoke the fires of separation. Type E is also unique because of everyone's high degree of social mobilization and modernization (except in Central Asia) and because of the special set of circumstances giving the old elite an incentive for secession.°° 6° Given these circumstances, a separatist nationalism is the most rational solution for the main elites. This is the argument of Ernest Gellner, "Nationalism in a Vacuum," in Alexander Motyl, ed., Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), pp. 243-54. A different rational choice argument stresses that nationalist secession using a cultural definition of citizenship is the best way of obtaining a collective good for an oppressed ethnic group. Thus, an Estonian nationalism that demands control over the language is the best way of forcing Russian migrants from the most desirable jobs. But the same approach works less well in Ukraine because of its ethnic heterogeneity. See Charles Furtado and Michael Hechter, 'The Emergence of Nationalist Politics in the USSR," in ibid., pp. 169-204, and Rein Taagepara, "Estonia's Road to Independence," Problems of Communism 39 (November—December 199o): 11-26. For a quite different dynamic in Central Asia, yet still consistent with Type E, see the articles by Martha Brill Orcutt, Yaacov Ro'i, and Guy Imart in Problems of Communism 40 (July—August 199o). David Laitin, Identity in Formation, shows brilliantly, again in terms of a relaxed rational choice construct, how a previously assimilated group chooses to reject its assimilationist gains when the overall game changes. See especially his chap. 9. Under such circumstances it becomes rational for that group, i.e., "diaspora Russians" in the "near abroad," to develop their own counter-nationalism.

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Russia and Ukraine Type E offers additional peculiarities that become salient only after independence when the issue of citizenship arises. None of the seceding states contains culturally homogeneous populations. The most important new ethnic minority consists of Russian-speakers whose status is reduced from hegemony to equality or even subordination. This will surely result in their alienation from the just-emerged polity whose newly dominant elite wants to build a nation-state anchored in its own culture. To make things worse, the now alienated minority looks to an external homeland for cultural reinforcement and even physical protections' Nowhere was the process of secession as complex as in Ukraine. The story illustrates the variety of actors and their ideologies that Type E seeks to capture. Moreover, secessionist nationalism was and remains a minority faith in Ukraine.62 Before and during World War II the core of Ukrainian nationalism was the fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which was mostly busy practicing terrorism against the Polish authorities in Galicia. It actively fought on the German side against the Soviet Union. It was even allowed to create a weak administration in occupied Kiev and Lviv. Despite brutal Soviet repression, the OUN revived in the 196os, only to be repressed once more but to reemerge again under a new name in 1988. The OUN at all times blamed all Ukrainian disasters and disappointments on Russia in general and communism in particular. Its program called for the racial purification of Ukraine and the complete purging of society of all Soviet accretions. Though never in power, the organizations deriving from the OUN were influential enough to push Ukrainian politics toward the right, toward a consistent anti-Russian posture. Naturally, support came largely from western Ukraine and the west-of-the-Dnieper area. Opinion in eastern Ukraine, the Crimea, and Russophone areas in general was always hostile to fascist nationalism. The middle ground of Ukrainian politics was occupied by a group of liberal-nationalist parties, supported by much of the Russophone population and the intelligentsia. Some were anticommunist rather than anti-Russian; all favored democracy and a civic definition of citizenship. They were an outgrowth of the 197os Ukrainian Helsinki Group and of Rukh, the mostly democratic movement for autonomy that sprang up in 1988. The eventual winners, however, were the national communists, led first by Leonid Kravchuk and later by Leonid Kuchma, the first and second 61 This complication is worked out in detail by Rogers Brubaker, "National Minorities, Nationalizing States, and External National Homelands in the New Europe," Daedalus (Spring 1995): 107-32. 62 "Minority faith" is the subtitle of Andrew Wilson's Ukrainian Nationalism in the 199os (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 997). This section relies entirely on his work.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

presidents of independent Ukraine. The Ukrainian Communist Party (CPU) has a long tradition of seeking autonomy and cultural rights. Kravchuk, in 1989, was not apparently eager to participate in the murder of the USSR in which he joined in 1991. He was driven to the anti-union position by the nationalist-secessionist pressures unleashed by glasnost in order to protect the CPU. The Party embraced nationalism to save itself. Its members were the satisfied, the successfully assimilated elite. It was the threat posed by the unassimilated opposition intelligentsia that provided the glue for the ideologically heterogeneous coalition of elites that toppled Moscow rule. That glue did not prove to be very strong. Perestroika and the World Before listing the well-known foreign and defense policies associated with the Gorbachev years, we must note that there was no national consensus on foreign policy. The military, the conservatives in the CPSU, the various dissident integralists all opposed the new détente as a sell-out to the West, whereas the liberal opposition endorsed these measures. Arguing that states, not classes, matter in international politics, and that the interests of the people inhabiting the states count more than governments, the Gorbachevites spoke of mutual security, not national security. Hence they put nuclear arms reduction at the top of their agenda and initiated it with unilateral measures. They abandoned regional conflicts in Afghanistan and in Africa. More important, they foreswore military intervention to prevent the defection of the east European states and dissolved their main alliance, the Warsaw Pact. The fighting abilities of the Soviet armed forces fell into disarray. Many soldiers lost their patriotism in Afghanistan. Draft dodging became a national sport even before Estonia announced that it would no longer participate in the system of conscription.63 63 The New Thinking on world politics was a theoretically articulated variant of the commitment to crisis prevention already present in the Brezhnev years. The theoretical basis of the New Thinking is analyzed by William Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). In "Reality Check," World Politics ( July 1998): 661-63, he shows that international bipolarity and national CPSU dominance were seen as the main obstacles to reform. Moreover, the Gorbachev circle saw them as intrinsically connected. These books throw much light on the mysteries of these years: Jerry Hough, Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-1991 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1997); Richard N. Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen, eds., International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Jacques Levesque, The Enigma of 1989 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Philip Zelikow and Condoleeza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). For a constructivist explanation (which I accept) of the New Thinking, see Robert G. Herman, "Identity, Norms, and National Security," in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of

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The most striking aspect of this dramatic change in thinking was Gorbachev's embrace of multilateralism as superior to bilateral relations among superpowers. For the first time, the USSR took United Nations affairs seriously, supporting the war against Iraq over the protest of many military and diplomatic officials. By 1993, however, traditional ties reasserted themselves in Russian resistance to United Nations measures against Serbia and Iraq. Europe was the crucial area in the New Thinking. One reason for not opposing the reunification of Germany was the hope that the new Russia would be accepted eventually as a member of the European family of postnational polities, as a member of the common European culture of which the postcommunist Westernizers thought themselves a part. Hence the USSR sought close ties with the European Union as well as membership in the Council of Europe. The former promised close economic ties and gradual steps toward a market economy; the latter offered interparliamentary contacts and opportunities for demonstrating interest in the protection of human rights. But there were limits: when the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe offered to mediate the secession crisis in the Baltic republics, Moscow refused because it considered the situation an "internal affair." Much remains unknown about these years. But what we do know suggests that from 1985 to 1991 one of the great political dramas of the twentieth century unfolded in Russia. Although it began as an effort at reform from above, the process of transformation was snatched from its initiators and became a revolution. Unlike the revolution of three-quarters of a century past, the new Russian revolution featured no vanguard party and no armed insurgency, and was not made in the name of a class or a single identifiable program or principle. Unlike many other revolutions, it was not fought to craft nationhood or to recapture lost national sovereignty. It was a popular, democratic revolution,

but it differed from cases of "redemocratization" experienced in many other countries in recent decades. . . . The rebellion of most of its heroes did not predate the onset of the revolution itself.64 National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), and Jeff Checkel, "Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy," World Politics (January 1993): 271-30o. The enormous role of a transnational epistemic community of arms controllers before 1989 is documented by Matthew Evangelista, "The Paradox of State Strength," International Organization (Winter 1995): 1-38; after 1989 rapid personnel turnover and administrative incoherence in Russia reduced the influence of the group. 64 M. Steven Fish, Democracy from Scratch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 3; my emphasis. See p. 191 for the model of society-state relations Fish uses to explore how opposition groups were able to develop and prevail between 1985 and 1991 despite the previous dominance of the state.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS POSTCOMMUNIST RUSSIAN IDENTITIES (SINCE 1991) Precarious Legitimacy of Institutions Russia's "First Republic" (1991-93) died in a short civil war that pitted President Yeltsin against a parliamentary faction that sought unsuccessfully to limit his powers to rule by decree. The "Second Republic" came into being as a result of a plebiscite that approved a new constitution drafted entirely by the executive. That document establishes a federal government for the now independent former RSFSR. It is headed by a president, elected by the people for five years, who in turn appoints the prime minister and members of the cabinet, who must then pass a vote of confidence in the State Duma. The federal executive also includes a council representing the executives of the twenty-one autonomous republics and a council of the leaders of the 66 autonomous territories and regions, as well as the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The State Duma, the lower house of the bicameral Federal Assembly, the legislative power, owes its 450 members half to proportional representation and half to single-member districts. The 178-seat Federation Council is appointed by the 89 territorial units of the federation, ranging from full-fledged "sovereign" (autonomous) republics to smaller regions and districts. The constitution provides for judicial review of executive and legislative acts. The division of powers between the center and the federal units strongly favors the center, but the local units raise the taxes and thus constrain the center's budgetary autonomy. The constitution forbids the articulation of an official ideology. The president, at his discretion, can rule by decree and thus sidestep opposition control of the Duma. This constitutional formula was far from inevitable. Civic criteria of nationhood were adopted though ethnic ones were urged by some. Executive domination over the legislature was another bitterly contested issue. Yeltsin has used his power of ruling by decree very generously; many think he abused it, though the Constitutional Court did not stop the practice and Yeltsin survived impeachment by the Duma. Yeltsin first played the role of liberating Russia from the yoke of the USSR, giving Russia back to its citizens. That done, he assumed the role of state-builder and used "his" constitution as his primary vehicle. In his eyes, "a strong executive branch was required both to pry Russia free of the Union's powers and to supply Russia with strong leadership in its center and the instruments of imperative coordination that would keep Russia's regions from going entirely their own way."65 Despite this claim, serious malaise among the minorities was respon65 George W. Breslauer and Catherine Dale, "Boris Yeltsin and the Invention of a Russian Nation-State," Post-Soviet Affairs 13, no. 4 (1997): 314.

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Russia and Ukraine

sible for the constitution's delegating generously to the constituent units. Most of the larger republics were given exclusive rights over their natural resources, the power to make economic policy, and the political institutions to create the cultural rights deemed appropriate by each minority. Tatarstan, the largest republic, was the pacesetter. Clearly, Yeltsin accepted the advice of those who believed that no other formula would satisfy the larger, territorially concentrated, ethnic groups, whose strength is shown in table 7-10. Nevertheless, the state remains weak. Constant bickering between the president and the Duma continues. Everybody complains of widespread corruption in government. Administrators regularly disregard the difference between the public interest and their private concerns. The center's writ often does not reach into the republics and regions, particularly as regards the economy. Poll after poll shows that ordinary Russians do not trust or respect political parties, the Parliament, or the president or believe that the new constitution will give them a democratic state or protect the territorial unity of Russia. Some observers are convinced that the timing of elections and the autocratic manner of writing the new constitution militate against democratic legitimacy. Even though the Second Republic has enjoyed an orderly succession and peaceful change (except in Chechnya), its institutions and political parties remain very frail.66 The attempted impeachment of Yeltsin was a Table 7-10.

National composition of the RSFSR, 1989

Nationality

Population

Russians Tatars Ukrainians Chuvash Dagestani Other

119,823,000

81.5

5,587,000 4,411,000 1,764,000 1,764,000 13,673,000

3.8 3.0 1.2 1.2

Total

147,022,000

100.0

9.3

SOURCE: National'nyi sostav naseleniya SSSR (Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1991), as quoted in I. Bremmer and Ray Taras, eds., New States, New Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 48. 66 Two-thirds thought that by 1996 both Russians and non-Russians would be treated fairly and that, on the whole, material things would improve, though democracy might not. To the question "What would you like the country to be?" 41 percent gave responses favoring the old USSR, 24 percent favored a strongly centralized Russia, and only 15 percent opted for a decentralized federation. Irina Boeva and Viacheslav Shironin for the Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Russians between State and

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

farce, but even though the charges were bizarre, between 6o and 7o percent of the population believed them to be true. The travails of an economy halfway between the market and the remnants of state ownership are well known. Despite a continuing commitment to higher living standards and high-quality social services, economic inequality has increased dramatically. Polls reveal that two-thirds of the people consider capitalism morally objectionable. Privatization of state property has been slow but steady, except for land. However, instead of a broad spectrum of the public gaining a share in the privatized properties, something called "crony capitalism" has developed in which shares in enterprises are bought by insiders, the heirs of the nomenklatura, who then ally with bankers and often with criminal organizations. Repeated government efforts to scrap the system of collective farms in favor of single-family private farming have failed to decollectivize the bulk of Russian agriculture because of foot-dragging by the former agricultural bosses and the reluctance of farmers to strike out alone. Agricultural production remains as inefficient as it had been in Soviet times, as do many of the largescale industries. Tax evasion and tax fraud are everywhere. One of the government's greatest weaknesses is its inability to collect taxes; hence it often does not pay salaries and pensions. Industrial relations practices have changed little since Soviet times. Patron-client principles continue to rule in the form of "survival networks" among managers of state-owned enterprises and trade unions, both anxious to avoid being closed down, laid off, or privatized. Networking enables them to survive despite being non-competitive. The reasons for capitalism's bad repute are summarized by Fish: "intimate proximity of public and private power; oligarchic, market-constricting control over the economy's commanding heights; nearly complete corruption of officialdom responsible for economic policy; and the absence of any semblance of the rule of law in the realm of economic activity."67 Despite the precarious legitimacy of public institutions, Russia has seen a vibrant rebirth of social and political pluralism. Voluntary groups have sprung up everywhere. The spectrum of political groupings includes the Communist Party and its agricultural affiliate on the left, sometimes allied with the racist-integralist right (which calls itself the Liberal-Democratic Market (pamphlet), 1992, pp. 23-33. Later polls confirm this picture. See an Interfax poll reported in Argumenty i Fakty (January 1998), which also reported 43 percent of the population as indifferent to all political parties. These estimates differ appreciably from poll to poll. The Jamestown Foundation Monitor reported in March 1998 that 3o percent felt Stalin was a wise and strong leader whose merits in winning World War II outweigh his cruelty and tyranny. For evidence of labile mass support for democracy, as contrasted with solid support at the elite level, see Judith S. Kullbert and William Zimmerman, "Liberal Elites, Socialist Masses and Problems of Russian Democracy," World Politics (April 1999): 323-58. 67 Cohen, Schwartz, and Zysman, Tunnel at the End of the Light, p. 86.

396

Russia and Ukraine Party!) and several other groupings that stress patriotism. The liberaldemocratic center is occupied by two parties that often quarrel with each other while lacking a sufficient number of overlapping interests to form viable coalitions. The parties, except for the Communists, remain without local organization or roots. Many disappear after a single election. The noncommunist parties most prominent in December 1999 did not exist two years earlier. During the 1993-95 Duma, 103 deputies out of 45o changed party affiliation. Some parties are the vehicle of single leaders. This situation results in an increase of floating voters and the lack of a reliable party base. On the eve of the Duma elections in December 1999,57 percent expected the results to be rigged. The electoral campaign was shot through with irregularities giving preferential media access to supporters of the government parties. Numerous now aggressive unions formed in competition with the former Soviet labor union, which remains quiescent in the face of labor unrest. Similarly, a number of employers' organizations also developed. Yeltsin attempted a regime of tripartite corporatism to govern the economy, but the effort fell apart over labor objections. There has clearly been a religious revival in Russia, though not necessarily a mass return to religiosity. The Strathclyde polls show socialism, capitalism, glasnost, and perestroika as much less popular in 1991 than Christianity and a "united and indivisible Russia." The Orthodox Church is now close to being once more the state church. It is legally recognized as an "inalienable part of Russia," though it does not receive subsidies from the federal government. Its prelates officiate at ceremonies celebrating the historical continuity of the nation. In much-disputed legislation the Orthodox Church is given pride of place among the "official" religions of Russia, which include Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and "Christianity" in addition to Orthodoxy. Other religions, mainly Protestant denominations and newer cults, have to prove they have been active since 1982 in order to escape restrictions on their right to worship and seek worshipers. The law was enacted in direct response to a demand of the Orthodox Patriarch that Russia's true religion be protected from foreign influences.68 68 The reburial of the murdered czar and his family in St. Petersburg was ignored by the Orthodox hierarchy and most politicians, but Boris Yeltsin honored the event with his presence. He had earlier appointed a commission to work out a new official "Russian ideology." The commission was unable to complete its work because of personnel turnover and internal disagreement. A 1998 poll suggests that 32 percent of 18-26-year-olds believe in a god (35 percent of adults do); only 5 percent of the young (7 percent of adults) believe religious organizations should be active in political life. lskoavisimaya Gazeta, Supplement on Religion, January 23, 1,398.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

The public is still far from bestowing legitimacy on the new democratic Russia. Most still seem to prefer things as they were before Gorbachev, including overwhelming demands for full state responsibility for employment, medical services, and education. After the collapse of the currency in summer 1998 most demanded price and currency controls and the renationalization of some firms. Public unrest was expected to rise. Crime and the economy were great sources of worry, but the only ethnic tensions of concern to people were an outgrowth of the Chechen revolt. The expressions of trust for political institutions remained dismal. Rule by "the intelligentsia" is preferred to that of politicians.

No Consensus on Foreign Policy Russians remain of several minds on how to project their new nation-state onto the world. Luckily, they have not faced a major international crisis since withdrawing from Afghanistan and Africa. They avoided alliances, improved relations with most of their neighbors, pursued active peacekeeping/intervention in their "near abroad," and received a fair amount of multilateral and bilateral foreign aid. But their relations with Japan and Ukraine remain unsettled, and their claims to a right of intervention in the "near abroad" are challenged by others. Russians, elites and masses, project three notions about national identity: nostalgic imperialism, Slavophilistic Russianism, and Westernism. Each has an impact on the content of foreign policy, and there are marked overlaps in these beliefs. Nostalgic imperialists regret the demise of the USSR. They wish to defend "their geopolitical space" and to protect Russians living in the former union republics, as well as reincorporate Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine. They suspect multilateral and bilateral arms control agreements. Nostalgic imperialists dislike the United States and market economics, disdain United Nations agencies, and prefer to build their own "Eurasian" regional alliance. They juxtapose a "Eurasian" emphasis to that of the Westernizers' commitment to "Atlanticism"; they stress the need for close relations with central and south Asian countries, show great interest in China and fear of Japan. The policies of former Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev were anathema; those of his successor Yevgeny Primakov were more to their liking. Slavophilistic Russianists no longer have an interest in the old multiethnic empire. They stress the need to revive a purely Russian nation-state that continues the cultural traditions of the czars while jettisoning corn398

Russia and Ukraine

munism and empire.69 They favor the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the organization uniting all the original fifteen republics except the three Baltics, as the best medium for protecting Russian "exiles" in the "near abroad," which they consider a legitimate Russian sphere of interest. They are reluctant to make concessions to non-Russian minorities in the federation for fear that they might wish to secede; hence they supported both wars in Chechnya as necessary. Russianists fear that arms control is weakening Russia further. They regret reliance on the United States and foreign aid. Like the imperialists, they prefer a Eurasian tilt over an Atlanticist one. They fear NATO expansion to the Baltics enough to advocate putting pressure on local Russians to intimidate Riga and Tallinn. Imperialists and Russianists share a strong concern over Russia's loss of international status. They deeply regret the loss of superpower status, a key reason for their dislike of the United States. They denounce the eastward expansion of NATO and its active operations in the former Yugoslavia. Some observers believe that support for Serbia and Iran is due less to a substantive interest in the affairs of these countries than to a desire to challenge U.S. interests and influence there, thus reasserting a claim to superpower status. The same explanation is given for Russian resistance to demands for liberal economic policies extracted by the IMF as a condition for continued financial support. Westernizers also put their faith in the CIS, but they stress only the economic integration aspects of the organization, not the military or cultural. Their main interest is Russia's entry into the world of political pluralism and market economics. Hence they seek close ties with all European organizations and with the United States. They back Western initiatives in the United Nations, support arms control agreements, and looked for a face-saving compromise on the issue of NATO expansion. They hedged on the issue of Russians in the "near abroad" and opposed the war in Chechnya. Boris Yeltsin, after adopting the Atlanticist-Westernizer identity for the new Russia for several years, moderated his position in the direction of the Slavophilic Russianists.7° Many other prominent politicians did the 69 The terms empire, state, and nation-state are, of course, socially constructed and therefore devoid of intrinsic meaning. Nevertheless, armed with this insight, it is possible to sketch how various political groups have constructed meanings. For an outstanding effort to portray the Russian case, past and present, see Mark R. Beissinger, 'The Persisting Ambiguity of Empire," and Ronald Grigor Suny, "Ambiguous Categories: States, Empires, Nations," Post-Soviet Affairs (April—June 1995): 149-96. 70 Primakov wanted Russia to be one pillar, along with China, Japan, the European Union, and the United States, in a global concert of major powers maintaining world order. He also sympathized with the Slavophilistic view and was eager to establish "strategic partnerships" with any country able to balance U.S. influence. He, along with most other

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

same. The identities remain fluid and overlapping. No one is clearly ascendant; all three find expression in an often ambiguous and vacillating policy. Advocates of all agree, however, in opposing strong supranational powers and intrusive roles for NATO, the UN, and even the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which Russia had been an original champion and which mediated several disputes in the "near abroad." The armed forces are in disarray and confused, unable to recruit or to function as potential war fighters. Draft resistance is widespread, aided by family members and often abetted by law enforcement agencies. The increasingly rural base of recruitment yields personnel too unskilled and uneducated to handle sophisticated equipment. Army units, because their members are ill-paid, badly housed, and inadequately fed, have resorted to stealing and selling their equipment in order to survive. Discipline has declined to the point that personnel trust only their immediate mates and obey orders only from immediate superiors. According to a 1995 Duma report, ground force units are undermanned by almost 5o percent; no exercises or maneuvers above battalion level have been carried out. Only 3o percent of the combat equipment meets modern requirements. There has been much confusion over the division of military assets between Russia and the successor states. The most severe dispute, between Ukraine and Russia, continues. The strife over the division of the Black Sea fleet immobilizes units, bases, and shipyards. Ukraine agreed to make over its nuclear assets to Russia only after receiving financial subsidies and military guarantees from the United States. Discord continues about Russian rights to bases in Ukraine and the division of equipment. High officers have responded by seeking to redefine the mission of the armed forces and by reasserting their political importance. They now stress Islamic fundamentalism as an important target and single out Iran and the Taliban as possible enemies. More and more, missions have been altered to make the armed forces able to repress domestic unrest; the wars against Chechnya were the first test of that doctrine. The army demanded that Russia adopt a doctrine declaring the entire area of the former USSR its special sphere of influence. Reorganization plans were Russians, opposed changes in the ABM Treaty and favored holding other arms control treaties hostage to U.S. continued adherence. The two Chechen wars have created a strong Russian feeling of hostility for the West for urging moderation. Primakov and all his successors as foreign and prime ministers have insisted on absolute non-intervention, whether bilateral or multilateral. They have denounced Western overtures as affronts to Russian great power status. Vladimir Putin's foreign policy remains opaque, but he evidently shares these views, even though he also agreed to some multilateral monitoring of Russian conduct regarding human rights violations. 40 0

Russia and Ukraine

worked out, aiming at total personnel not to exceed i percent of the population, with conscripts accounting for only half that strength. Cossack units are to be revived as the army reduces the size of its core combat units from divisions to brigades. Will the armed forces be subjected to civilian control or function autonomously? Civilian control was weakened a great deal in the last years of the USSR. The law all but removes the military from parliamentary supervision and lodges all power in the hands of the president. Still, the recent history of the armed forces suggests that considerable autonomy continues. The army carried out interventions in civil wars in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan, albeit labeled "peacekeeping"; though authorized by Moscow, they were not effectively controlled by the center. Presidential control over operations in Chechnya was intermittent. Every president faces a military that, in the words of Duma member and former general Lev Rokhin, feels: "I am a soldier and I have nowhere to retreat. Behind me is not just Moscow but the whole of Russia— plundered, humiliated and begging for salvation."71 Russia has sought to compensate for the loss of its status as a superpower by taking seriously the possibility of using multilateral institutions to advance its objectives. While taking the United Nations more seriously as a forum of joint action than was true in Soviet days, Russian officials make clear that they insist on retaining special rights for the permanent members. Moreover, they seek to change UN procedures by creating and reviving fora in which a concert of great powers rules, rather than the United States alone. They also seek more UN recognition of regional security efforts, increased arms control efforts, and collective measures to combat terrorism. Although it consistently supported the sanctions against Iraq in 1991, Russia thereafter grew increasingly restive about U.S. hegemony in these UN operations as nostalgic imperialists reminded everyone that Iraq had been the Soviet Union's close ally. The Westernizers followed an unswerving policy of seeking close organizational relations with Europe, somewhat weakened by their Slavophilistic successors. Russia joined the Council of Europe and was sharply rebuked for not protecting human and ethnic minority rights. Interest in the European Union extends only to the expansion of commercial ties, not membership. The cornerstone of regional European security arrangements has been the OSCE; that organization also serves as a guarantor of democracy and human rights. Moscow has relied on it to monitor elections and cease-fire agreements in the Caucasus and in Moldova, if only to mask the display of Russian military power in these areas. The organizational centerpiece of Russia's turn to multilateralism is " New York Times, September 1, 1997. 401

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

the CIS, clearly intended by most of its founders to cushion the consequences of the Soviet Union's breakup in the economic and military realms. The CIS institutions are partly copied from the European Union's, though apparently they do not at all function like its model's because intergovernmental decision-making procedures dominate, albeit sometimes moderated by weighted voting. (Russia controls half the votes in the crucial councils and committees.) 72 One main task given CIS was the creation of a common defense organization in the form of a CIS Military Command. Russian military officials had hoped this formula would simply preserve the Soviet military apparatus and avoid a division of military assets. They were disappointed because Ukraine and some other members flatly declined this formula. By 1994 the military program of the CIS was dead in the water. Bilateral agreements between Russia and some other CIS members took its place while five members formed their own arrangements leaning toward NATO. The more important task was economic. In 1994 the members agreed to all but re-create the single economic space that had been the Soviet Union's, albeit in slow and gradual steps. For that purpose, they set up a CIS Interstate Economic Committee, which was voted supranational decision-making powers by eight of the twelve members. Ukraine was among the opponents. The actual implementation of this program remains in its infancy. There is evidence of declining Russian influence in CIS and increasing resentment of whatever influence remains. Multiethnic Russian Citizenship or Russian Ethnic Identity? Of Russia's eighty-nine "regions," twenty are "autonomous republics" possessing a full panoply of elected political institutions mirroring those of the federation. Only six are dominated by titular non-Russian majorities. Smaller ethnically mixed areas command fewer autonomous powers and institutions. One-eighth of all families in the Russian Federation are ethnically mixed. Many minorities felt ambivalence about the breaking up of the USSR.73 Legally, the relationship of center to federal units remains muddled. The term "sovereign" is loosely bestowed on all units. It does not mean "independent" to Russians, no matter its meaning in international law; I am indebted to Keith Darden's unpublished fieldwork for this information. See Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, p. 253. The dictator of Belarus (formerly Belorussia), Lukashenko, is eager to rejoin Russia; there had never been much enthusiasm for independence in Belarus. A monetary union with Russia has been negotiated as well as a full economic union. Neither, apparently, is being implemented because of Russian opposition to joining with poorer Belarus. 72

73

402

Russia and Ukraine the connotation is "equality of rights." The largest republic, Tatarstan, enjoys autonomous powers in excess of the division of powers laid down in the 1993 constitution; Chechnya claims to have seceded from the federation; the agreement that ended the 1994-95 civil war leaves its legal status undefined. Yakutia was given "economic sovereignty." In 1992 a Treaty of Federal Union was negotiated with most of the republics; it granted them so much autonomy that the ensemble approaches what is usually considered a confederation; but the 1993 constitution contravenes this arrangement with something much more like a messy federation. Both documents remain valid! In practice separate asymmetric deals are struck by Moscow with local units showing enough determination to challenge the center, especially over control of local resources and taxation. The actual strength of local sentiment varies greatly from place to place. Displays of full-fledged nationalism are very rare. The demand for autonomy followed exactly the same causal dynamic as that sketched for the former union republics: when CPSU control slipped, local political entrepreneurs took advantage of the incipient democratic institutions to use the slogan "local control over local resources" to assert autonomy. Only rarely did the demands extend to cultural autonomy, such as more local-language schools at higher grades. The case of Chechnya remains unique, though similar conditions obtain elsewhere in the North Caucasus. All this has raised questions about "Russian" identity which remain unresolved. It is not possible in Russia to claim to be a nationalist merely by asserting one's rejection of communism, as Rukh did in Ukraine: for reasons shown, the imperial, communist, and Russian identities had been officially merged. Hence the new political community remains polarized on how to interpret the past and how to shape the future. The Westernizers wish to jettison the imperial and the communist legacy and define the Russian identity as the totality of the federation's population, as delimited by its geographical borders: the state defines the nation. But the Russianists reject this solution in their search for what is uniquely culturally Russian irrespective of the territorial boundaries of the state: the nation ought to define the state. This claim explains their almost pathological concern for diaspora "Russians" in the "near abroad" (who may actually be Ukrainians, Finns, Moldovans, or Belorussians). The "diaspora" may include the successor states as well as European minorities among Caucasus peoples, Tatars, Bashkirs, and Kalmyks. This ambiguity has encouraged the rapid development of a specifically Rus national identity among diaspora Russians which challenges autonomist forces among the titulars.74 74 Laitin, Identity in Formation, chap. s o. Tatar politicians stress that true democracy is associated only with politics at the republican level and that Moscow represents lingering imperialism. The army invokes the need to defend diaspora Russians (including Abkhazians!)

403

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Chechens and Tatars have not forgiven Russia for the persecutions of the Soviet era. Moscow's efforts to mediate disputes among Caucasian peoples are not always appreciated or accepted. Yet Moscow has gone out of its way to enhance education in the local languages, often in the face of criticism from Russianists. The principle of endowing individuals, irrespective of domicile, with cultural rights rather than create ethnically defined political units was proposed but not accepted.75 Nor was an unambiguous statement in favor of a purely civic definition of citizenship. Territory and culture remain too closely associated in many people's minds. And so the questions "Who are we?" and "What is our global mission, our place in the world?" remain in the realm of contention. Tellingly, the Duma in January 1998 was unable to agree on a national anthem or a national flag. Yeltsin had proposed a Glinka tune and a tricolor with a two-headed eagle, the czarist emblem. The communists proposed the red flag with hammer and sickle and the old Soviet anthem. The Russo-Stalinist as justification for maintaining garrisons in some successor states. Russianist identity claims overlap with imperial claims, both communist and czarist, and with the Eurasian arguments reviewed above. Despite these ideological ambiguities, Russian border guards seek to stem the flow of diaspora refugees into Russia because of the lack of facilities for them. See Vera Tolz, "The National Debate over Nation-Building in Post-Communist Russia" (paper presented at the May 1998 conference of the British Association of Slavic and East European Studies). She finds that there are five types of Russian nationalists who are contending for control of the national myth. (1) Imperialists wish to restore the Soviet realm, which they see as a unique civilization, the position of the ex-communists and the rightwingers. (2) Russians are a nation of eastern Slays, exemplified by Alexander Solzhenitsyn; the nation consists of the union of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. (3) Russians are a community of Russian-speakers irrespective of domicile, as exemplified by Vladimir Kabuzan's Russians in the World and interest in diaspora Russians. (4) Russia is the nation of those who inhabit the present federation, or a pure civic definition of nationality, the "civic Russian" vision advocated by liberals. (5) Russian identity is defined by blood, the racial definition offered by fascist fringe groups. For them, the task of the state is to protect this racial purity from contamination by other nationalities, especially Jews. " The majority of titulars do not reside in their republics of origin (Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, p. 267). A survey conducted in 1993 shows the range of responses of nationalities who answered "only my own republic" to the question, "Of what polity do you consider yourself a representative?" Bashkirs Buryats Chechen Ingush Chuvash Kalmyks North Ossetians Tatars Yakuts

43 53 87 55 23 46 37 52 59 (Calculated from Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, p. 262.)

404

Russia and Ukraine

imperial-national myth that had prevailed between 1930 and 1985 remains to be replaced with an idea on which most can agree.76 "Throughout 1990-1995," say Breslauer and Dale, Yeltsin addressed the "nation-building" issue within Russia in terms that contrasted sharply with those of both the ethnic nationalists and imperial restorationists within Russian politics. His speeches eschewed references to Rus . . . in favor of Rossiya. . . . He referred consistently to Rossiyskiye, not Russkiye, state interests. He referred to citizens of Russia as Rossiyanye . . . , not Russkiye. He referred to the people as the narod . . . , not the natsiya.77 But while going out of his way to express respect for the powers and rights of ethnic republics, Yeltsin all but destroyed Chechnya and pledged total support to diaspora Russians (which he failed to deliver). None of this sufficed to conciliate those whose nationalism is tinged with racism. Yeltsin, in short, remained almost consistently true to the principles of liberal nationalism. But those committed to the liberal view gained just over 40 percent of the membership of the Duma in the elections of December 1995 and lost much influence since. Integralist nationalism characterizes many who hunger for an imperial revival or a dose of Pan-Slavism. Syncretism is rife in the thought of some intellectuals, resembling a modernized Slavophilism. Like SpanishAmerican pensadores in the nineteenth century, those who admire the West also envy it, and often fear it, whereas those who despise the West are busy inventing new histories and fantastic visions of their own past. The Russianists among them seek to fashion a purely Russian nation-state because they say, correctly, that none has ever existed. The imperialists have reinvented geopolitics and discovered "Eurasia" to replace the old Soviet Union. And in the overlapping nationalist rhetoric of Vladimir Zhirinovksky's "Browns" and Gennadii Zyuganov's "Reds," most antiliberal nationalists have found their home.78 " See Ernest Gellner, "Homeland of the Unrevolution," Daedalus 122, no. 3 (1993): 141-53, for the argument about the temporary success of the Russo-Stalinist national myth as civil religion. Breslauer and Dale, "Boris Yeltsin," p. 315. Emphasis in original. For an analysis of the 1995 elections, see Steven Fish, "The Predicament of Russian Liberalism," Europe-Asia Studies 4g, no. 2 (1997): 191-22o. Veljko Vujacic, "Between the Soviet Left and the Russian Right," Post-Soviet Affairs 12, no. 2 (1996): 118-54; Roman Szporluk, "Belarus, Ukraine, and the Russian Question: A Comment," Post-Soviet Affairs 9, no. 4 (1993): 366-74. For wonderful illustrations of the current Russian ambivalence about where Russia belongs, see David Remnick, Resurrection (New York: Random House, 1997), pp. 111-12. For the anti-Westerners, rereading Karamzin has become fashionable. For examples of the continued use of primordialist Rus and minority arguments within current political discourse, see Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, pp. 7-12. Zyuganov persuaded the Duma to declare the Belovezhskaya Pushcha agreement void (March 1996). Ibid., p. 250. He also argued that unless ethnic Russians are protected against the claims of minorities, they face genocide.

405

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Nor Is There a Rationalized Ukrainian Nation-State If Russians cannot agree on who they are, neither can their neighbors to the south. Ninety percent of Ukrainians voted in favor of independence in 1991. Fewer than half subscribe to the faith that the eastern outpost of Western civilization—Ukraine from the Carpathians to the Caucasus—is finally reasserting its essence, allegedly suppressed since 1654, against the semibarbarian Asiatic-Russian culture. That faith, Ukrainian nationalists say, ought to become the country's national myth. Ukraine earned a rationalization score of 57 percent in 1998. Clearly, these nationalists have some way to go. But so do all the others. Integralist-racist nationalism is represented by several parties with fascist leanings and fields a paramilitary group that fights as an ally of ethnic groups challenging Russia in the Caucasus. The destruction of Russia is one of its aims. Its strength is confined to Galicia and Kiev. Democraticliberal nationalism is Rukh's cause. It stands for a civic definition of citizenship, full toleration for all ethnic minorities, a market economy, and a policy of reconciliation with Russia. Several smaller liberal-nationalist parties take similar stands. The powerful neocommunists and their allies favor an approximation to restoring the Soviet Union. Their strength lies among the Russophones in industrialized east Ukraine and the Crimea. Since in 1996 75 percent of Ukrainians preferred the old regime, 43 percent expressed confidence in communism, and 67 percent wanted a strong leader, their hopes are not fanciful." The Ukrainian constitution provides for a strong presidentialparliamentary system and a constitutional court. Though unitary in form, it gave the Crimea a quasi-federal status that was strongly opposed by the integralists. Private property, including land, is guaranteed, a position challenged by the left. Foreign (read Russian) troops may be stationed on Ukrainian soil temporarily. Ukrainian is the sole official language, a choice opposed by the left. Full cultural and educational rights are to be accorded to ethnic minorities. All residents are full citizens, ethnic Ukrainians as well as others. Nevertheless, the country also committed itself to a policy of Ukrainizing the civil service, the armed forces, and the universities, leading many Russophones to fear the encouragement of discrimination in employment. 79 All public opinion material in this section is taken from Richard Rose and Christian Haerpfer, New Democratic Barometer IV (Glasgow: Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, 1996). 61 percent agreed to the abolition of parties and the suspension of Parliament. Only 39 percent identified themselves as democrats. In the parliamentary elections of 1998 party strength appeared as follows: Communists, 24.7 percent; Rukh, 9.4 percent; Socialist-Peasants, 8.6 percent; Greens, 5.4 percent. The rest was scattered among others. See Laitin, Identity in Formation, pp. 101-2, for evidence that even Rukh's liberal nationalism may acquire a deadly anti-Russian tone.

406

Russia and Ukraine Language conflict remains a major source of tension. In 1991 almost half of the residents of Ukraine used Russian as their first language, four times more than those who claimed Russian as their native tongue. Only half the children studied in Ukrainian-language schools in 1993. A mere 37 percent of books and 27 percent of newspapers were published in Ukrainian. No wonder the nationalists demanded a radical policy of linguistic Ukrainization. All government business is to be done in Ukrainian only; the rule is not enforced in Russophone areas, however, and is not practiced consistently in Kiev. Affirmative action favoring Ukrainian writers and speakers is demanded for the media and for employment in the public service, though it is not practiced consistently. The linguistic hegemony of Russian continues despite the government's blocking of Russian television broadcasts.8° Conflict also pervades religion and education. Competition and distrust between Uniates and various brands of Orthodoxy fester. Early state efforts to support the growth of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev) failed to take off. Yet religious affiliation is highly correlated with a number of political attitudes. Russophones, overwhelmingly nonbelievers, also tend to favor federal ties with Russia, whereas half the nationalists of the western region remain faithful to the Uniate and Orthodox churches and insist on full Ukrainian independence. The educational system is being remade to purge it of Soviet interpretations of Ukrainian history. The nationalist historiography of nineteenth-century intellectuals/prophets is being taught. It holds that only Ukraine is the legitimate successor to Kievan Rus and thus the true home of eastern Christian Slavdom. It also teaches that the seventeenth-century Cossack polity, infamous for its genocidal attacks on Jews, was a full-fledged nation-state, the ancestor of modern Ukraine's, and the West's bulwark against the infidel Turk. And, of course, it teaches that Ukraine is now rediscovering its soul after recovering from three hundred years of martyrdom inflicted by the czars and the commissars. These themes are not likely to make loyal Ukrainian citizens of the Russophone population, many of whom continue to cherish positive feelings about the proRussian history they were taught in communist schools. This tension overlaps with the uneven impact of the dramatic economic decline Ukraine suffered after 1991. The industrialized Russophone east was hit hardest by the crisis. The Russian-speakers also resisted s° There is a chance that the balance will eventually tip in favor of Ukrainian in Kiev and the west-of-the-Dnieper region as most children receive their education in Ukrainian and as their career incentives become exclusively identified with it. For material on this issue, see David D. Laitin, "Language and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Republics," and Dominique Arel, "A Lurking Cascade of Assimilation in Kiev?" Post-Soviet Affairs 12 (January—March 1996): 4-24, 73-90.

407

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

the introduction of free markets more resolutely than did people in other parts of the country. The east and south favor a federal constitution; the center and west resist this plan as a betrayal of the national idea. Ethnic conflict persists and contradicts the legal structure of multiethnic tolerance. The nationalist parties, given their fear of Russia, were determined to make a major military power of the new state. They wanted to take over and nationalize all the Red Army units and their equipment found on Ukrainian soil in 1991, irrespective of the ethnic character of the troops. They also claimed the entire Black Sea fleet and its Crimean bases as well as the tactical and strategic nuclear weapons emplaced on their soil. Moreover, they demanded that Ukrainian recruits serving elsewhere in the USSR be repatriated. Ukrainian was to become the sole language of the new forces. When asked whether Russia posed a threat to Ukraine, 67 percent of the people thought not; 75 percent believe that no neighboring country poses a military threat. No wonder, then, that these grandiose plans lacked popular support. Ukraine was persuaded, after receiving NATO guarantees and financial support, to give up its nuclear weapons and accept the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. The Black Sea fleet, rusting rapidly, remains under Russian control. Most Ukrainians serving in Russia did not return, but most of the Russians who happened to be stationed in Ukraine in 1991 volunteered to stay. Kiev now has the problem of getting rid of them in pursuit of its policy of Ukrainizing the armed forces. Conscription is accepted without audible dissent. The government insists on not participating in CIS military planning while expressing interest in joining NATO. Ukraine is clearly not yet a rationalized nation-state. Is it likely to become one? Given its concentration in Galicia and Kiev, the racist-integralist ideology is most unlikely ever to win the state. But liberal nationalism is far from being a sure winner. To rationalize Ukraine under its auspices, liberalism must gain the support of the communist-leaning pro-Russian eastern population. That will not happen unless the economy improves, agreement is reached on economic doctrine and institutions, and interethnic tolerance becomes a reality. That, in turn, is unlikely to occur unless Russian is accepted as a second official language. As matters stand, religion, language, and economic status combine to maintain the deep chasm between Galicia and the Donbas. Bridging it requires that the parties transcend the zero-sum ideological and status game with which they began independent life. The fact that Ukraine has not split in two suggests that even nation-states originating in the Type E syndrome have a chance to survive. Ukraine suggests that they might 408

Russia and Ukraine outgrow the unpromising circumstances of their birth if the participants learn to respect and tolerate one another.81 Russia, Liberalism, and Learning The czars never managed to rationalize Russia, nor did they complete the construction of a nation-state. The communists did both. Like a termite-weakened house, the nation-state they built decayed into rubble after some inadequate repairs made between 1954 and 197o. Even then it is difficult to decide whether seemingly successful rationalization was due to a popular embrace of the official national myth of multicultural brotherhood and material progress, or whether repression and ruthless manipulation accounted for the superficial integration of the country. In any event, it is clear that the Second Republic has so far not achieved even the shoddy rationalization of the USSR. Nevertheless, as in Ukraine, the country has not fallen apart either. The institutionalization of democracy is being attempted. So is the radical rebuilding of the economy. Civil society flourishes. The world is no longer afraid of the Russian Bear because it no longer threatens anyone. Does all this constitute evidence of learning? Can the germ of liberal nationalism be credited for the learning one can spot? We use the terms "learning" and "adaptation" in a special way. Collectivities adapt when, on experiencing the failure of policies, they alter the means of action without changing ends. Collectivities learn, however, when they change the way they think about the causal nexus held responsible for the problems policies are to solve. Learning involves changing ways of assigning causality, redefining ends, and choosing different means. We saw that some learning occurred under Khrushchev and Brezhnev and more was experienced in the Gorbachev years. This book is based on the belief that liberalism has an elective affinity for learning. But we just saw that authoritarians and their institutions are capable of learning as well! Why do we nevertheless believe in the special 81 Keith Darden argues convincingly that the intensity of anti-Russian nationalism is a function of the timing of social mobilization. In areas of relatively early mobilization, as compared to mobilization in Great Russia, the resentment of Russian culture is strongest, as in the Baltic countries, Poland, and western Ukraine. Type E nation-state formation is also characterized by this special feature. The presidential election of December 199.9, marred by serious violations of electioneering rules, showed the continuing communist dominance of eastern Ukraine. President Kuchma won reelection by a narrow majority over the communist candidate, Petro Symonenko. He stood for rejoining Russia and Belarus, an anti-Western foreign policy, and the retention of the state-owned sector of industry.

409

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

affinity between liberalism and learning? Since the seventeenth century, at least in the West, learning occurred because of the growth of specialized consensual knowledge about phenomena of interest to many people. Ideas about causes changed, in part because of the acceptance of specialized knowledge by the relevant community. The Soviet leaders appreciated consensual knowledge in physics and aerospace matters, and they came to appreciate more of it in economics and international affairs in the 198os. In their case, being socialized in a materialist ontology probably made the causal significance of "scientific and technological revolution" more politically compelling than was true in most of the Third World. But they learned without relying on liberalism. Authoritarian institutions need not prevent learning. They may actually allow a more rapid acceptance of the new knowledge than does a highly pluralistic system if that knowledge is officially sanctioned. But liberalism makes it much more likely that consensual knowledge will be used in policy making because it is based on an ontology of skepticism and openness, as well as on an epistemology of systematic experimentation. How likely is it that liberal nationalism will win out in the unresolved debates over Russia's identity? Some straws in the wind allow for optimism even though very little learning has occurred since 1991. Russians used to believe in "Holy Russia": Russia, the Third Rome, was humankind's sole hope for salvation.82 Communists, and even prominent intellectuals then identified with the regime, such as Andrei Sakharov, were sure that the ideal of a global classless society justified totalitarianism.83 One enormous measure of change is the fact that Sakharov could change his mind long before glasnost. The contemporary advocates of integral and syncretist nationalist ideologies seem to lack the dogmatic certainty of their nineteenth-century progenitors. They seem to be much more instrumentally motivated. They sound more like clowns than zealots. Their mixture of nostalgia and resentment lacks the ring of strong faith. For today's Russians, New Year's Day is the chief holiday, not the patriotic remembrances of yore.84 The decline of dogmatism gives the incorporation of consensual knowledge into policy another chance. Liberal nationalism may still win in Russia, but that day has not yet come. 82 This is the argument of Michael Cherniaysky, as summarized in E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since I78o (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 990), PP. 49-50. " For the story of Sakharov's gradual conversion from Marxism-Leninism to liberalism, see Ernest Gellner, Encounters with Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), chap. 8. 84 My optimism is not shared by Tishkov, who believes that the self-assertiveness of all nationalities, including Russians, must decline and show more of a spirit of nonethnic compromise. Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict, pp. 259-61.

410

CHAPTER EIGHT

Is Nationalism Obsolete?

Nations are nothing eternal. They had a beginning; they will have an end. —Ernest Renan

ONTOLOGICAL CONFESSIONS This book is intended to explicate the relationships between nationalism and the rationalization of polities undergoing modernization. It presents thirteen case histories of such polities, selected either because of their importance in world history, given their size and power, or because they illustrate a particular pattern. I also analyzed three other polities (Pakistan, Nigeria, Tanzania) without including full-fledged case studies. Considered collectively, the cases make statements that explain a movement from the dominance of one national myth as rationalizer to another kind of national myth. And, more speculatively, I project the implications of these shifts into the future: is nationalism going to be as important in the future as in the recent past as a rationalizer of polities undergoing change? What might the world look like with nationalism more or less all around us? In Chapter I I suggested that the relationship of nationalism to rationalism will follow a discernible pattern, as expressed in a variety of I am indebted to Emanuel Adler, Peter Haas, and John Ruggie for comments. I remain responsible for remaining obscurities and malapropisms. My conclusions regarding Nigeria and Tanzania are heavily dependent on the research of Loren Landau, and those regarding Pakistan rely heavily on the research of Arun Swamy; unfortunately, no narrative case study material on these countries could be included in this volume. 41.1-

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

hypotheses derived from the core typologies used. Here I confess that things rarely work out as predicted. Many hypotheses are in dire need of amendment as a result of our empirical investigation. This chapter is devoted to the task of summary and revision. Nationalism remains a core concept useful for thinking about the future, though not nearly as useful as fifty or a hundred years ago. I say this despite the eruption of interethnic conflict in many parts of the world and the likelihood that it will continue. Again, this book is not about ethnic hatred but about the conditions under which nationalism contributes to the rationalization of nation-states, a concern far more comprehensive and abstract than a fixation with local rage. I list a few findings calling for refinement or amendment. None of our five patterns of origins of nation-states is more strongly associated with the victory of a particular national myth than any other (see table 8-i). Integralist nationalist ideologies are as likely as liberal ones to result in myths that rationalize countries, though not as likely to last. Syncretist as well as integralist formulas can and do yield to liberal ones after rationalization has been achieved. Half the countries studied still have not attained full rationalization or have been successfully rerationalized since undergoing a traumatic disintegrative experience. Syncretist formulas, though present in the history of almost all our cases, have a poor record of bringing cohesion and order to a modernizing country. One conclusion does stand out: the enemies of tradition are winning almost everywhere. One way to do social science is to subordinate one's argument to a strong thesis under which most of the empirical material can be subsumed; our study is a poor candidate for this procedure. In any event, it would result in a simplistic conclusion unlikely to stand the test of time. Conversely, overly meticulous attention to the details of each case—"thick description"—is likely to result in no clear argument, no strong theme, at all. It remains discrete description. I hope to escape both dilemmas. A single strong theme did not emerge even from case studies rigidly subordinated to the typological and definitional conventions described in Chapter i. Moreover, I disowned any intention of demonstrating clear causality among the variables used by confessing ab initio that all I claim to show are elective affinities—more or less regular associations of particulars that suggest a causal link—among the elements of my typologies of origins and of ideologies, and of possible rationalization patterns. I used ontologically justified typologies as conceptual filters in presenting my accounts. My prior commitment to specific notions of rationality and rationalization motivate the typologies. These hinge on the transition from "tradition" to "modernity." 412

Not yet Not yet 1870 1876

1865

1980 Not yet 1800 1860

B E A C

1980 1930 1820 1840

1947 1790/1991

1961 1991 1708"

1789

1 940 1800

1960 1890 1600

1750

a / = dramatic break in history, revolution. b Roughly in current boundaries.

Tanzania Ukraine United Kingdom United States

1947 1905/ 1917/ 1991 1961 1991 1800

1950 Not yet 1970 1917

D/A' B/D' D A/Ea

1960 1980 1970 1900

1821 1959

1821 1950

Mexico Nigeria Pakistan Russia

None

Toward liberalism None None Toward liberalism

Liberalism

195o/not now Not yet Not yet 1970/not yet

1930 Not yet

1890

A

1890

Premodern

1800

Japan

Toward liberalism Toward liberalism None

1890/1950

1890

1970

B

1970

Premodern

1900

Iran

1933 Not yet

Liberalism? ? Toward syncretism? None Liberalism Traces of syncretism Toward reformistsyncretism Liberalism

National myth changes to

Integralism None Liberalism

Traditionalsyncretism Reformistsyncretism Integralism None None Integralism (1917)

10o

1960

1947

1 940

Liberalism Integralism Liberalism

1900/1960

1792 1870

1800 1870

A C B

1850 1850 1970

1700" 1870/1990" 1858"

1750 1800 1900

France Germany India

1949 1923

1822 Premodern 1800"

1930

Integralism Integralism Integralism

National myth prevailing at rationalization or likely to prevail

1950/1995 1960/not now Not yet

Notyet 1950 1960

D/Aa A (modified) B

1960 1950 1950

Fully rationalized by

1880 1919 1910

State created

Nationstate created

Mass-based nationalism by

Original type of nationalism

Advanced social mobilization by

Brazil China Egypt

Elite national sentiment by

Table 8-1. Conditions of nation-state formation

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

Tradition against Modernity "Modernity" starts in Europe and North America some time toward the end of the eighteenth century. Before that, "tradition" reigned everywhere. The material base of social life changed very little, very slowly. Population fluctuated pretty much in obedience to Malthusian principles. Dramatic departures from subsistence agriculture were confined to western Europe and China. Human communities maintained their internal cohesion by sharply distinguishing between virtuous insiders and vile outsiders. Religious and cosmological ideas were indistinguishable from political and economic notions in providing the content of collective solidarity. Male dominance prevailed in all aspects of human institutional life. States were formed through conquest. The core of the state was a dynasty allied with supporting groups of notables. States came and went in proportion to the dynasty's ability to satisfy its supporters and to defend itself against rival dynasties and their states. All states tended toward becoming empires. Certain practices were followed universally and considered natural: extraction of taxes by force from the weakest strata, slavery, torture, almost permanent war. Changes of religion and cosmology did very little to alter these practices. Political behavior seemed to be quite independent of the content of religious ideas even though belief in—and fear of—powerful transcendent forces beyond human control shaped all consciousness. As Max Weber taught us, societies were held together by such beliefs, given internal cohesion, "rationalized" because each formula of governance embedded in each religion is a form of substantive rationality. Each formula prescribed ways of actor conduct that combined personal calculation of advantage with collective justification. Each actor's construction of the reality in which he or she functions is influenced by the situation in which he or she is placed, as interpreted by the content of the substantive (value) rationality in which his or her perception is embedded. "By means of rationalization . . . it is possible to maintain large-scale, complex social systems that would be overwhelmed by a rising tide of information they could not process were it necessary to govern by the particularistic considerations of family and kin that characterize preindustrial societies."' It is the "rising tide of information" that shapes the character of modernity. That tide undermines religiously sanctioned notions of time and space, of hierarchy and authority, and particularly the principle of a divinely ordained order of nature and society which human agency ' For a summary of Weber's assumptions about human agency, see P. S. Cohn, Modern Social Theory (London: Heineman, 1968), p. 69. The quotation on rationalization is taken from James R. Beniger, The Control Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), P. 15-

414

Is Nationalism Obsolete? challenges at the risk of blasphemy and heresy. Modernity is different from every past age, says Anthony Giddens, because it is "reflexive": The reflexivity of modern social life consists in the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character. . In all cultures, social practices are routinely altered in the light of ongoing discoveries which feed into them. But only in the era of modernity is the revision of convention radicalized to apply (in principle) to all aspects of human life, including technological intervention into the material world. . .. What is characteristic of modernity is not an embracing of the new for its own sake, but the presumption of wholesale reflexivity—which of course includes reflection upon the nature of reflection itself.2

It is this open-ended, self-reflective, and self-correcting quality of modernity that gives it an elective affinity for the practice of pluralistic democracy and of liberal nationalism. Scientific Thinking and Universal Progress Science as a generalized mode of inquiry, of knowing, is an integral part of modernity. We now realize that the Enlightenment's deification of science in the form of reason enshrined a naive faith in unlimited progress for humankind, in material and institutional terms. That unintended and unforeseen consequences of "knowing" could entail suffering, disappointment, and even the reviling of reason was something that was not fully recognized until our own time. Disappointment gave rise to the skepticism toward scientific knowing we call relativism. The relativistic stance toward knowledge heralds a denial that reflexivity is associated with liberalism and social progress. In our context, relativism suggests that far from being the wave of the future, liberal nationalism is just another ideology that will probably lose out in a contest with the time-tested traditionalist social practices embedded in syncretist views.3 Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 38-39. Giddens also argues that "trust" of others in taking risks is a key characteristic of modernity. It exists in a setting of "(a) the general awareness that human activity . . . is socially created . . . ; (b) the vastly increased transformative scope of human action, brought about by the dynamic character of modern social institutions. The concept of risk replaces that of fortuna [in traditional thought]. . . . Rather it represents an alteration in the perception of determination and contingency, such that human moral imperatives, natural causes, and chance reign in place of religious cosmologies." Ibid., p. 34. The social scientists' case for relativism is made eloquently by Peter Winch, "Understanding Primitive Society," American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1964): 307-24, and Clifford Geertz, 'The Way We Think Now," Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (February 1982). James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), suggests that traditional knowing is always superior to scientific knowing because it relies on time-tested insights rather than the hubris of scientists and planners. In short, he challenges the entire modernist enterprise.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

I resolutely contest this view and continue to argue a putative link between liberal nationalism and progress via scientific knowing. Why? Western (scientific) and non-Western (traditional) epistemologies are incommensurable, but so were Galileo's views and those of his clerical rivals. Even if the Western traditionalist view of nature stressed principles alien to the scientific, and continues to do so in much of the Third World, scientific, technical, and even political elites in Asia and Africa show a very lively interest and capability in "Western" science, in all forms of rationally organized knowledge. Modern rationality in politics consists in separating the expressive from the practical function of an institution, because only by doing so can practical reality tests be legitimated and applied. The hallmark of a modern culture is its ability to test its procedures of inquiry and to change them in order to achieve better practical results. By that test, and by that test alone, Western science—including social science—is a superior form of rationality, because it is better in predictably achieving the practical purposes shared by all cultures. If all cultures come to recognize the incommensurability of their traditional worldviews with that of the West, and decide by incremental steps that their inherited notions of causality lack something desirable, scientific knowing will become universal despite the critique of relativists. Why else would most of the world seek to copy so many Western ways?4 Am I not exaggerating? Is liberalism inevitably an exclusive property of modernity, if not of Western ways? Is tradition always to be seen in the garb of religion? I have attempted to cast doubt on each of these propositions in this book. They represent very misleading oversimplifications that our survey of nation-state formation has sought to correct. Yet the currently unpopular distinction between modernity and tradition remains central to my enterprise, though not in its stark bimodal form. Critics of that distinction portray modernity as a Western construct, a residue of Western imperialism, expressing a hubristic disrespect for non-Western cultural traditions, which remain as authentic now as they were before the advent of Western dominance. It is true that modernity is a construct born in the West that remains deeply enmeshed in a Western construction of reality. So what? That construction has been gaining followers in Latin America, Africa, and Asia 4 My case is made in full by Charles Taylor and Ernest Gellner in their contributions to Martin Hollis and Steven Lukes, eds., Rationality and Relativism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982), as well as by Jurgen Habermas in Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971). My ontological and epistemological choices are fully discussed in Chapter 1 of the first volume of this work, The Rise and Decline of Nationalism.

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Is Nationalism Obsolete?

for more than a century. The intellectual and institutional hegemony of modernity is a fact of history. Recognizing this, however, does not allow us to obscure the remaining traditional features that also shape the socially constructed reality of Third World peoples. I seek to do justice to them by allowing for the continuing power of syncretist nationalisms to motivate elites who seek to come to grips with modernity. Modernity is defined ideal-typically by the replacement of substantive with formal rationality; by locating self-constructed realities in hitherworldly concerns (predominantly material) instead of associating them with cosmic forces (usually of divine origin); by abandoning submission to the divine will to instrumental and purposive calculation; by specifying separate value and evaluational systems for functionally differentiated human pursuits. Obviously, the ideal type is not matched perfectly with real human behavior even in the modern West. But it is this ideal type that is being emulated almost everywhere outside the West by committed modernizers. There is no ideal-typical "tradition" to juxtapose to this version of modernity. There are many traditions, many non-Western social constructions of reality. They motivate the construction of many different political ideologies, including nationalisms. This book investigates whether any of them is capable of rationalizing societies undergoing rapid change, whether compromises among modern and traditional ways of thinking and living—the "modernity of tradition," as some have called the compromising—are able to deliver contentment to large numbers of people, to legitimate rationalized nation-states. Apparently, the answer is "no" so far, but we have hardly reached the end of time. An Indian political theorist captured the essence of the subtle modernity-tradition problematique that forces us to reject either-or modes of argumentation. She notes that one aspect of the problematique is the ambivalence of many non-Western people about the notion that rights inhere uniquely in individuals, that individuals are the only legitimate carriers of citizenship, that ties to the secular state are allimportant in shaping identity: The critics of the modern, secular nation state question this conception of the self Minimally they suggest that the individual should be seen as the bearer of multiple identities: as a member of a family, caste, varna, tribe, village and state. Citizenship or membership of a state is obviously an important marker of individual identity in the contemporary world, but it does not exhaust or subsume membership in other groups and communities in society. . . . Membership of cultural communities . . . constitutes the living fabric of Indian society: it shapes the social choices and political preferences 417

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

of the people. But more importantly, it provides a shared system of values and a way of life. .. . These conceptions . . . offer a conception of good that informs all aspects of our lives.5 The living dynamic of such beliefs persuaded me to anchor the discussion of rationalization in young states in propositions that question the notion that Westernization and modernization are the same thing, that varieties of revolutionary nationalism always furnish the most successful way of rationalizing societies undergoing rapid social mobilization. The findings, however, suggest that the revolutionary way ends up victorious most often. How Free Is Agency to Produce Progress? One subtext of our inquiry is the hope that all nationalisms are "progressive" and that liberal nationalism, by deliberately aiming at increasing individual wealth and health and improving the chances of peace, is the most progressive of all. Moreover, this hope includes the hypothesis that the populist institutions and practices associated with all nationalisms make the goal into a reality. My treatment unabashedly favors agency over structural explanations of events. The mechanisms of change I single out—ideology, adaptation, learning—are all types of choices leaders make and manage to persuade their followers to accept. My emphasis on consensual knowledge, often derived from science, stresses cognitive processes as explanations. What about the practice, institutions, and norm-guided behavior that the sociologist committed to New Institutionalism would counter? Are there no constraints on choice that need recognition and explication? Is not the patterned use of consensual knowledge itself a structure? How can we speak of structuration as an ontological principle, as I do, unless we also acknowledge the presence of structures? First, I concede that all agency includes a great deal of cognitive activity that is not akin to scientific thinking and does not evoke consensual knowledge. My frequent stress on ideology as an explanation of choice confirms this concession. Decisions derived from ideology are just as vital in defining social constructions of reality as more formally made choices, perhaps more so because they are more rigid. Moreover, such decisions are also capable of resulting in progress even though they lack the selfreflective qualities of systematic inquiry and hence are less reliable means to a better life. Gurpreet Mahajan, "Cultural Embodiment and Histories," in Upendra Baxi and Bhikhu Parekh, eds., Crisis and Change in Contemporary India (New Delhi: Sage, 1995), p. 353.

418

Is Nationalism Obsolete? All choices, no matter their source, often carry unintended and unanticipated consequences. It has been suggested that the inability of decision makers to correctly anticipate confirms the existence of structural constraints. Trouble ensues when the fallible leader bumps into obstacles that a structurally informed analyst would have already pointed out. I reject this overly sweeping argument. Bad decisions can certainly result from miscalculations that ignore known constraints on resources or nature; reliance on consensual knowledge would have avoided them. But they can just as easily come about for reasons of cognitive failure; this also is correctable by means of learning. The agency-structure debate is complicated by the inability of scholars to agree on identifying structures. What counts as a structure? There is a tendency among constructivist scholars of international politics to equate practice with institutions and both with norms and norm-derived behavior—something everyone does because no one questions whether it can be called a practice or an institution. If the practice is held to be due to the acceptance of an underlying norm then the origin of that norm becomes the crucial issue in the exploration of change. If so, we are back to agency. The same conclusion applies when we turn to the study of how norms (institutions, practices) survive or change. If we stress actor disappointment and satisfaction as core explanations, we cannot rely on some presumed transpersonal structural qualities. Cannot the use of consensual knowledge become a practice if it is institutionalized in fixed routines and bureaucracies? Yes, in the sense of a repetitive activity. No, if we recall its inherent self-reflective character that questions the finality of any knowledge claim. Am I a Liberal Nationalist? My ontology is obviously "liberal." It avoids fixed dogmas and unchanging universal values. It highlights human agency over other causal forces and therefore favors the possibility of deliberate institutional reform. Moreover, my ontology is deliberately "progressive" in the sense of allowing for cognitive evolution and allying itself with an evolutionary epistemology. Does that also mean that my espousal of liberalism makes me a champion of liberal nationalism as the "best" ideology, as morally superior to the others we have encountered? Before responding, let us examine liberalism as an ideology. Liberals favor the idea of progress. They believe that history moves from tyranny and autocracy to governance that increasingly respects the freedom and the wishes of the individual. They believe that free markets ensure the production of more and better goods and services, provided only that governments maintain a welfare floor below which no citizen can 419

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

be allowed to sink. They believe that democracy and high living standards, ensured by free world trade, will also produce world peace. The normative world of the liberal is made up of belief in specific substantive values: maximum freedom for the individual, high standards of living guaranteed by government intervention, and peace based on democracy and devotion to advancing the material welfare of all. Moreover, it endorses the right to national self-determination of any group that calls itself a nation.6 I hope to avoid making these beliefs the definers of my study of the role of nationalism. The literature on nationalist ideas and beliefs is replete with works that assert the moral superiority of liberal nationalism; many go so far as to deny that other nationalisms should be considered authentic because they emphasize primordial features rather than civic ones, or because they remain indifferent to freedom.' I have gone to great lengths to argue for the reality and authenticity as rationalizers of many types of nationalism other than the liberal variety because of my concern with the ability of nationalism to unite people battered by change irrespective of the value content of that nationalism. My treatment makes clear that I am not a "triumphalist." I do not believe that liberalism in its substantive sense has won a final global victory because it came out the winner in the cold war. I consider the future of neither capitalism nor democracy ensured anywhere as long as dissatisfaction is the engine of political life. Liberalism-as-process, however, has gained a lot since 1990, though in the absence of rationalization we cannot hazard a guess about its staying power. Yet, undeniably, my approach does favor liberalism in a sense that sidesteps the beliefs of liberal ideologists. My ontology is "liberal" because of my interest in the relationship between nationalisms—all of them—and 6 Personally, I do not share many of these beliefs. However, I associate myself with the endorsement of the moral superiority of liberal nationalism worked out by Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Nonetheless, I try to treat all nationalist ideologies with respect because of their hypothesized power to rationalize fragmented societies. I do not associate, uniquely and always, neoliberal economic reforms with collective learning. I argue that such reforms reflect learning if they are made as a result of prior analysis pinpointing the reasons for failure on the part of the state as economic manager. But learning would also occur, in my coding, if, on proper analysis, the consensus favoring neoliberalism is abandoned in favor of state planning or regulation because it is seen as harmful to the maintenance of full employment. Among the many contributors to the literature on nationalist ideologies we mention only Hans Kohn, Nationalism (New York: Van Nostrand, 1955); Leah Greenfeld, Nationalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); and Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (New York: Praeger, 196o), as claiming unique authenticity for liberal nationalism on moral grounds. Arnold Toynbee wrote in a similar vein. Contrast this emphasis with David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), which argues for the moral superiority of all nationalisms over cosmopolitanism and localism and also for the moral superiority of liberal over all other nationalisms. 420

Is Nationalism Obsolete? human progress. It is liberal because of its stress on change for the better, on evolution toward something ardently desired by almost everyone: more wealth, more health, and more peace. The study of rationalization features the ability to learn practices and to fashion institutions that advance humankind's material and cognitive progress. But note: I include only values clearly held by almost all, not those specific to democracies, or even all the aspirations proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (whose universality is more hope than fact). Hence my liberalism is the notion of liberalism-as-process, a process of defining and redefining the public interest of a particular polity by continuous compromise based on changing perceptions of interests and values informed by new knowledge. All claims to knowledge about solutions to public problems are solicited and exposed to scrutiny and confrontation Limits to controversy are imposed by virtue of the necessity of defending one's claims by appeal to relevant knowledge. If solutions fall short of expectations, a new round of value trade-offs ensues, reenacting the earlier steps. In this reenactment the shared meanings represented by the initial routine may disappear and an entirely new basis for legitimacy may have to be found. I hold that this version of liberalism-as-process, though certainly not practiced in most nation-states today, nevertheless presents the best available road that leads to global progress. My bias in favor of liberal nationalism is due less to my personal value commitments than to my conviction that no other rationalization formula is equally likely to result in human progress. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Ernest Renan's insight into the fate of nations, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, surely applies to nation-states as well. We saw in Volume that Britain, Japan, France, and Germany no longer look or act like the self-confident, sovereign nation-states they were before 1945. Even if the United States does not suggest the same kind of self-abnegation at this time, America surely no longer projects the self-confident national self-history seen earlier. None leaves many traces of the long steps to nation-statehood they had to take. The entities studied in this volume have not taken all these steps yet. Many are still stumbling without much direction, short of the destination we call nation-statehood: Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine. Others have come close but seem unsure about the finality of the arrival: India, Iran, Egypt, Tanzania. In a few cases the attainment of nation-statehood is indisputable, but full rationalization around a stable national myth is still lacking: Brazil, China, Mexico. We cannot tell how or whether these 4 21

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

countries will eventually leave nationhood behind; we are not even sure all will reach it. This section lists the main findings of our study. It asks which—if any— structural features have elective affinities for typical development paths and particular national myths. It tells us which nationalist ideologies tend to be most often associated with successful rationalization. And it reopens the issue of the ideal-typical historical sequence associated with the formation of nation-states by asking whether it correctly describes situations of late social mobilization, when nation and state are being built simultaneously by newly emerging elites. Do Structural Features at the Origin of Nation-States Determine the Content of Rationalization? Social mobilization may be well advanced at the time agitation for the creation of a nation-state sets in; or the agitation may begin with a small mass base during the early stages of the mobilization process. Will rationalization be smooth, or will it elude the active counter-elite challenging the ancien regime? Will rapid (late) or slow (early) social mobilization favor a rationalization formula that features liberalism, syncretism, or integralism? Political and economic institutions supporting the modernization process may already be in place when nation-state formation begins; or their creation may be one of the demands made by the nationalist counter-elite. If such institutions are in place, relatively smooth adaptation or even learning rationalization will be simpler than if the opposite is the case. Open decision-making institutions (elected parliaments, extensive civil rights, relatively free markets) allow more adaptive behavior than syncretist institutions that bear the weight of hallowed sacred doctrines or integralist institutions that respond only to the will of a charismatic party leader. The mobilized-differentiated elites and their mass followers may respond in different ways to the established culture: they may wish to join it, or they may prefer to destroy it and substitute their own. Rationalization is much harder where the desire to create a new culture prevails. In short, structural considerations suggest that rationalization will be smooth, though slow, and show an elective affinity for liberal nationalism (or reformist syncretism) if (1) social mobilization proceeds slowly and is not far advanced at the onset of the nationalist movement; (2) relatively open decision-making institutions already exist; and (3) the mobilizeddifferentiated (the actively dissatisfied) have no wish to supplant the existing culture. What do our cases actually reveal? (See table 8-1.) 422

Is Nationalism Obsolete? These conditions are met only by India, Egypt, Mexico (1821-191o), and Brazil (1822-193o).8 India and Egypt follow the path of Type B, Brazil and Mexico Type D. The road to successful rationalization was not "smooth" in the normal sense of that term. It was beset by violent civil strife in Mexico, India, and Egypt; relative calm prevailed in Brazil because of the very low state of social mobilization and the smallness of the elite. Only in India's case did the process eventuate in a polity almost rationalized under liberal-nationalist auspices. More generally, the origin of the movement toward nation-statehood predicts very little about the eventual outcome. Development follows no reliable path. Brazil and Mexico shifted from Type D to Type A for apparently random reasons. Egypt, India, Iran, and Tanzania, even though all originated as Type B, later followed very different paths. China and Russia began under Type A, but Russia eventually shifted to Type E. The starting conditions, moreover, correlate not at all with the speed and success of rationalization or with the kind of national myth that eventually prevails. Only countries following the road of Type D can predictably be classified as losers in the race for rationalization. Theorists and historians of nationalism who persist in associating uniquely successful rationalization under liberal auspices with Types A and C are evidently quite mistaken. Integralism Is the Most Successful Rationalizer Our sample of late-developing nation-states includes only four countries that were successfully rationalized (Brazil, China, Mexico, Russia [1917-911) and four more that are approaching rationalization (Egypt, Tanzania, India, Iran). All the successfully rationalized countries except India achieved this status under the auspices of integral nationalism. Egypt and Tanzania did as well. However, all the integralist-nationalist polities (except perhaps China) are in the process of changing to a different formula and are still seeking to fashion postintegralist national myths. Whatever the merits of integralism in giving national cohesion to a late-developing society, most countries seem to outgrow this mode of rule, to reject it once they reach a certain level of social mobilization. Thus, Brazil was launched toward nation-statehood by the revolution of 193o, which inaugurated Type A as the path to nation-building; Mexico's path also followed Type A after the events of 1910 to 193o. The integralism that gave cohesion to both 8 "Advanced social mobilization" was considered to have been achieved when two of these criteria were met: illiteracy 5o percent or less, percentage of labor force in agriculture 5o percent or less, urban population yo percent or more. A country was coded as rationalized when the rationalization score exceeded 67 percent.

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THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS

started to crack, and they began to move toward liberal nationalism during the 198os. The Failure of Syncretism as Permanent Rationalizer Iran was successfully rationalized under traditional-syncretist auspices; in recent years the demand for reforms, and the number of policy innovations, suggests a slight movement toward reformist syncretism, though the process remains incomplete. Among our sample, there is no other instance of successful rationalization under syncretist auspices, except Japan's in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Morocco, Nepal, and Thailand may also illustrate that possibility. Moreover, demands for Hindutva as the ideological basis of rationalization in India contain a distinct flavor of reformist syncretism. Even though India was rationalized under liberal-nationalist auspices, the syncretist strain has been present ever since the debut of the nationalist movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. The onward march of social mobilization has strengthened it! Similarly, Egypt's integralist rulers have found it necessary to make many concessions to that country's Islamic opposition, divided though it is among traditional, reformist, and restorative syncretists. As in India, continuous social mobilization and modernization have made syncretism flourish. It is clearly too soon to claim that modernity and tradition are, in the long run, incompatible even if the cases of successful rationalization under syncretist auspices are confined to very few cases. Reformist syncretism in particular may well turn out to be an important formula for combining social harmony with continuing modernization in fervently Muslim and Hindu settings. What might be the role of syncretism in countries that are not yet rationalized nation-states? Islamic syncretism probably has a future in Pakistan. If Nigeria's north were to secede, it would do well there, but in a united Nigeria syncretism has no chance because of the competition between Islam and Christianity. The same is true in Tanzania. Nor does a Christian-infused syncretism have a future in Russia and Ukraine, given the religious divisions in Ukraine and the dominant secular culture in Russia. Nationalism, Progress, and Peace The studies of the older nation-states showed an undeniable affinity between nationalism, progress, and peace. It remains to be seen whether the same can be said about the cases discussed in this volume. The association of increasing wealth, health, and peace is shown in table 8-2. Overall, by no means every country in our sample can boast of progress 424

Table 8-2. Nationalism and progress Increase in Country

Wealth Health Peace Score

Brazil 1822-1930 yes no yes 4 1930-2000 yes yes some 5 China 1900-1950 no no no o 1950-2000 yes yes some 5 Egypt 1922-52 some no yes 3 1952-2000 some some some 3 France 1790-1945 yes yes no 4 1945-2000 yes yes yes 6 Germany yes yes no 1870-1945 4 1945-2000 yes yes yes 6 India some some no 2 Iran 1900-1979 yes yes some 5 1979-2000 no some no 1 Japan 1867-1945 yes no yes 1945-2000 yes yes yes Mexico 1821-1910 some no no 1 1910-2000 yes some some 4 Nigeria yes no some 3 Pakistan yes no no 2 Russia 1700-1917 yes no no 2 1 9 1 7—go yes yes some 5 1990-2000 no no some 1 Tanzania some some yes 4 Ukraine no no yes 2 United Kingdom 1700-1914 yes yes no 4 1914-45 no some no i 1945-200o yes yes some 5 United States 1790-1860 yes some no 3 1860-1945 yes yes no 4 1945-200o yes yes some 5 NOTE: Scoring for progress: yes = 2; some = 1; no = o. Maximum possible = 6.

THE DISMAL FATE OF NEW NATIONS as it evolved into or toward nation-statehood. Brazil, China, Mexico, and Tanzania can; Egypt, India, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, and Ukraine cannot. Iran, Russia, and Ukraine had done much better under previous integralist auspices. Our optimistic hypothesis is not borne out by events. Things look even worse when we focus on peace, especially compared with most older nation-state experiences. Only China, Mexico, and Russia have recently gone to war, or suffered extensive internal violence, less often than before. Brazil was more peaceful in the nineteenth century, Egypyt in the first half of the twentieth. India, Iran, Nigeria, and Pakistan remain far from peaceful. Tanzania and Ukraine have been so all along. ONE, TWO, OR No PATHS TO NATION-STATEHOOD? One would suspect that the need felt by ruling elites to strengthen their state while simultaneously creating the solidarities and identities of nationalism would significantly alter the modal historical sequence summarized in figure 8-1. The left-hand column lists the events that typically occurred in the experience of the early-industrializing nation-states studied in Volume 1: Britain, United States, France, Germany, Japan. The right-hand column translates the same events into the analytic language of rationalization and institutionalization at the national and international levels. The questions now are: (1) Do late-developing countries go through the same modal experiences as the older nation-states? (2) Do late-developing countries respond to international transactions and interdependencies as their older cousins did by creating or joining more and more international regimes, and thus reducing the number of competing meaning systems? The answer, because of the exceptions to be noted, is a weak "yes." There is no separate path to rationalization typical of late-developing nations. Secularization of intellectual life (points I and 2 in fig. 8-1). Nontheological causal reasoning developed everywhere even though in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Iran it remained without much influence. Reason came to dominate public intellectual life as public participation in politics became more widespread. Science came to infuse the life of the mind and to shape the understanding of human affairs, though in Islamic countries this trend was muted. In both czarist Russia and India important pockets of thought held out against this trend though it prevailed overall. Politics becomes somewhat knowledge-dependent (points 3 and 4 in fig. 8-1). Competing political ideologies that seek to incorporate what is now accepted as modern "knowledge" develop while the purveyors of these creeds claim a universal scientific warrant for them. One of these ideolo426

Figure 8-i. Evolution of rationalization Key events expressed as stylized historical process

Historical process expressed as interacting variables

1. Cognitive revolution in West / nontheological causal thinking

i. Reason

2. Secularization of intellectual life

1 2. Knowledge of nature (science) = knowledge of society and humanity

Democratization, growth of public participation

3. "Knowledge" used to define actors' political interests in form of competing ideologies

3. Premature claims to have found consensual knowledge

4. Government becomes problem solver under the auspices of winning ideology 1 5. Uneven economic growth, unrest, disappointment, suffering, rival knowledge, rival ideologies 4, Nationalist movements

N

6. Imperialism > Secessionist movements 4, National administrative centralization 1 7. Conflictual Diffusion of education, interstate relations technology 8. War, crisis 4, 9. Desire to avoid suffering 4, io. Growth of international law, organization, private transactions 4, 11. Repetition of step 5 leads to reiteration of steps 6—io Globalization of material expectations

1 4. Learning at state level

1

Incomplete rationalization 1 5. Interstate conflict

Divided > societies

NNation-state NNational 6. Rationalized societies