THIS TURBULANT WORLD: People's Endless Struggles to Change Their Lives

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Gandhi had been lucky in his adversary, for the British, though they imprisoned him, did not silence him. His message spread to the Indian masses and abroad, to touch the world's conscience. How many similar brave defiances, unheard, unchronicled, have taken place in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union itself the world will never know. But sometimes the protests of entire nations do get heard. Revolts and mass demonstrations broke out in East Germany in 1953, in Poland and Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and in Poland again in 1981. Each was crushed. Hungary has since been allowed much economic flexibility, but the police state and the Soviet army's presence have prevailed every time. The short-term lesson is that totalitarianism is not easily dislodged. The recurrence of outbreaks, however, suggests a reckoning that is only postponed.

Beyond the reach of the Soviet army, only two nations have in effect volunteered themselves into the Moscow orbit, Viet Nam and Cuba. The presence of a Cuban ally so close to American shores tempted Nikita Khrushchev to install missiles there in 1962. The dramatic confrontation of the Cuban missile crisis ended with Khrushchev's backing down, hastening his own downfall and spurring the humiliated Soviet leadership into a costly arms buildup. As for Castro, his first attempts to spread his revolution through Latin America were rebuffed, but now he is trying again in Central America.

In most of these turbulences, the presence of superior force was decisive. During Watergate, the U.S. went through its most serious political crisis in the 20th century without any bloodshed. Richard Nixon's illegal abuses of power led to congressional hearings, court trials and Supreme Court decisions. By these constitutional processes, he was forced to resign. The system, it was said, worked. In his memoirs, Henry Kissinger added a bizarre footnote. Nixon's chief deputy, Al Haig, once warned Kissinger that "it may be necessary to put in the 82nd Airborne Division around the White House" to protect the President should he seek to stay in power. Even the belated report of this calamitous possibility created little stir. Whatever other nations might do in crisis, it seemed inconceivable to Americans that troops could be called out to protect or to overthrow their leaders. Change might be sweeping, but there were understood limits.

In fact, despite all the emphasis on change, and despite the acceleration of the rate of change during the past 60 years, another powerful force was simultaneously at work all over the world, a desire for stability. Often it has carried the day.

—By Thomas Griffith