Word: totalitarian
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...army who realize that their country has to be more democratic to survive. Monge's advice to the U.S.: identify with those elements and help them prevail. > In Nicaragua the Sandinistas are unquestionably oriented toward Cuba and the Soviet bloc in foreign policy and are heading toward one-party, totalitarian rule at home. But the U.S. can still work to modify that government's behavior. The Administration should immediately soften its tone, thereby giving the Sandinistas fewer pretexts to justify their militancy and repression. In addition, the U.S. should work with Western nations to aid the non-Sandinista parties...
More compelling is an argument that Sontag hints at, an argument actually developed is more detail by Jeane Kirkpatrick in her infamous Commentary article. In trying to differentiate between totalitarian (left-wing) and authoritarian (right-wing) dictatorships, Kirkpatrick said the later were more susceptible to change for the better, in part because they exercised less complete control over social and economic aspects of life. Jaruzelski's seeming success has robbed much of the wind from the sails of those who pointed to Solidarity and hooted at her hypothesis. If Sontag's repeated use of the term fascism has power...
...premises of the democratic process is that the loser accepts his defeat and in return is given an opportunity to win on another occasion. It depends on a moderate center whose evolution is almost inevitably thwarted in a developing country when a totalitarian element succeeds in organizing a guerrilla war. This impels the government into acts of repression, starting a vicious circle that traps both government and opponents and destroys whatever moderate center exists-fulfilling the central purpose of the insurgency. Moreover, the victims of terrorist attacks are almost invariably the ablest and most dedicated officials, leaving in place...
Critics of the Administration's policy advocate an end to U.S. military assistance to El Salvador, preaching compassion and invoking the right of the nation to choose its own destiny. They would do this as that Central American nation descends further and further into totalitarian rule. Whether one views the situation from a moral perspective or one of realpolitik, our imperative is clear: to do what we can to ensure the Salvadoran people a voice in their own affairs...
Strobe Talbott's essay on the failure of Communism [Jan. 4] is prizewinning material. He captured the contradictions, false assumptions and lust for power that underlie this vast totalitarian system. However, the essay failed to pay sufficient attention to one striking aspect of the dilemma presented by Soviet power: it is the support of the Western world that has made the U.S.S.R. so indomitable. With our shipments of food and technology we have not only sustained the sinking ship, we have armed it as well...