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Show Marxist, Half-Marxist There is one thing Washington is having to learn to live with: the fact that even the increasingly ap-r parent failure of communism to solve economic difficulties diffi-culties has not deflected many backward nations from turning publicly to Marxism for inspiration. The latest to restate his faith in this issue is President Ahmed ben Bella of Algeria, who, while denying that Algeria has adopted Marxist ideology, admits that his regime accepts ac-cepts a "Marxist enconomic analysis." This situation is widely duplicated. Many of the new nations of Asia and Africa publicly confess to a Marxist orientation, although stoutly denying that they are Communist. Even in Japan, where capitalism year after year has produced a yearly economic growth rate of 10 per cent or more, much of the labor movement, many of the intelligentsia steadfastly advocate Marxist doctrines, which, if put into practice, might well have cut that growth rate seriously. It is reassuring to remember that when Mr. ben Bella and other speak of Marxism, it is hardly the type of Marxism taught at the Institute of Marxism-Lenin-ism in Moscow. Rather, it is a catch-all term under which are lumped a number of theories which these countries hope will help them catch up with the more advanced parts of the woldd. In fact, perhaps 90 per cent of African Marxism consists of government economic eco-nomic planning and government ownership of part, but not all, of the means of production. It seldom means the collectivization- of agriculture, class warfare, the dictatorship, or most of the other dogmas associated with European communism. Desperately aware of the need to modernize, but faced with mountainous obstacles, many of these governments gov-ernments have seized upon Marxism as a handy phrase to be bandied about when promising economic miracles to their countries. Capitalism, having been the economic eco-nomic system in operation in those European lands which once controlled much of Asia and Africa, is in somewhat bad odor. Furthermore, capitalism does not provide for that measure of government control which much of Asian and African leadership is convinced is necessary in underdeveloped lands. Thus Marxism has become a popular word, a popular pop-ular stance, without, however, being truly Marxist in the Soviet sense of the word. In some Afro-Asian lands the evolution of this particular brand of Marxism may be toward that in operation in Russia. In more, however, it seems likely to be in the opposite direction, as special spe-cial native problems are encountered. Christian Science Monitor |