China is one nation that remains profoundly unconcerned over the issue of human rights. But if only because China has more people than any other country, the issue is of importance.

The movement against Mao's wife, Chiang Ch'ing, and the “Gang of Four,” for example: Was this essentially a democratic mass movement against vicious, nasty power-maniacs? When Chinese officials say that they encourage and welcome criticism from the masses, is it perhaps to this kind of event they are referring? What happens to a Chinese who speaks his mind?

For that matter, does the truth come out? Was Chiang Ch'ing really a bad dress designer? If she had the benefit of private showings of the best of Western cinema, why wasn't she able to pass along a few hints to the directors of the appallingly repetitious, wooden, and exaggerated propaganda films that were produced under her?

These ideas, if prominently expressed in the United States, would draw loud protests. In Argentina, which has the second largest Jewish population in the Western Hemisphere, they stir little critical comment. This is not a speculative judgment but a fact, for these sentiments, illustrated with photos of dollar bills and Argentine coins, appeared in a lengthy editorial article by the progovernment Carta Politico (Political Letter), one of Argentina's most respected and influential monthly magazines in June of this year.

Americans of almost every variety want to believe again in the goodness and vitality of our nation. This hope was expressed in the 1976 Bicentennial observance and, for many, was strengthened by the election of Washington outsider Jimmy Carter, signaling a new era in our politics. It is with misgiving, therefore, that I add a skeptical note to this hopeful mood.

The flames of political passion and cultural frenzy that recently scorched our body politic have not been extinguished. Our discontents and disorientations may not rage, but they do smolder, hidden beneath dense clouds of bitter smoke. This situation may not comfort most Americans, but it does console genuine radicals who habitually fantasize about a mass radical movement in America. An American history full of aborted crusades and faded causes has put the radical faith to test, but never to rest.

What should have been the Soviet Union's great lesson—that beautiful Socialist dreams can easily turn into something far worse than a repressively tolerant bourgeois society, while those with eyes to see refuse to look—is an example that many with eyes to see and ears to hear have yet to consider. The prevailing cold war consensus was responsible for policy errors and misapprehensions of serious consequence, but its perception of Stalin's Soviet Union as an evil and dangerous despotism was correct. Those who had thought otherwise before Khrushchev's famous speech of 1956 were wrong.

Hard facts and disturbing clues were available long years before Stalin's fans flip-flopped on cue. The more sophisticated had deliberately refrained from looking at the ugly truth, or had looked and were not repelled. But a majority simply were incapable of assimilating information incompatible with their political mindset, unless it was directly related to matters of personal concern.

In his inaugural address on December 1, 1976, to an alarmed and disquieted nation, fifty-six- year-old President José Lόpez Portillo y Pacheco made a dramatic plea for unity. “Let us never forget our parents lived here, we are here, and our children will live here…A few of the rich, who export capital, and a few of the poor, who export their labor, may leave, but the rest of us are staying and we can make our country a hell or a land where life is good. It is in our hands.“

Not since the fury and turmoil of the revolutionary years had the presidential succession been enveloped in such public loss of hope and surrender to despair. Three devaluations in as many months had distressed the entire nation; seemingly arbitrary government expropriations of vast areas of rich agricultural lands further embittered property owners; hundreds of Mexicans responded to the crisis by sending abroad millions of dollars frantically withdrawn from the banks.