I can't claim all the credit for that last thought. It's actually a paraphrase of an insight expressed in a magnificent and largely forgotten essay by the German writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger. As far as I can tell, though it has been occasionally referenced in English, the essay -- entitled "The Heroes of Retreat" ("Die Helden des Rueckzugs" in the original) -- has never been properly translated into English, which is a terrible shame. Enzensberger published the article in one of Germany's leading newspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in December 1989. (You'll have a hard time finding it on the paper's website; if you want a copy, you're better off ordering a collection of Enzensberger's essays, like this one.)
Enzensbeger wrote his piece at a moment when the Soviet communist edifice in East Central Europe was falling apart. The man who did more than anyone else to facilitate that development was, of course, Mikhail Gorbachev, the then-Soviet leader, who made it publicly clear that Red Army troops were no longer in the business of keeping communist governments in the region in power, thus essentially inviting Poles, Czechs, East Germans, and all the rest to rise up in (mostly peaceful) revolt. This, Enzensberger argues, required a kind of political self-effacement and tactical modesty that is far more praiseworthy than the bloody military triumphs that once inspired traditional labels of "heroism." The compromises that enable nonviolent solutions to tyranny may not always qualify as the stuff of bedtime stories, but, the author insists, they are no less worthy of our accolades.
Enzensberger's other "heroes of retreat" include General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish communist who outlawed the Solidarity trade union and declared martial law in 1981, but opened the way toward an end of the communist party's monopoly on power later in the decade, as well as János Kádár, the reformist party leader in Hungary after the 1956 revolution against Soviet rule. Another is Adolfo Suárez, the first democratically elected prime minister of Spain after the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. In 1977, Suárez, who had once headed the fascist Falange Movement (one of the pillars of the authoritarian system created by Franco), presided over the first free elections in 41 years, the grandest act in the gradual dismantlement of Spain's transition to democracy.
"It was Clausewitz, that classic strategic thinker, who showed that retreat is the most difficult of all military operations," writes Enzensberger. "This is also true of politics." Suárez, Enzensberger writes, "was a participant and a beneficiary of the Franco regime; had he not belonged to its innermost circle of power, he would have not been in the position to do away with the dictatorship." It's for such reasons that the masters of political retreat rarely get their due: the role they play is one of pronounced ambivalence: "He who abandons his own positions is not only surrendering ground, but also a part of himself." But it's precisely this capacity to surrender power, rather than amassing it, that belongs to the peculiar mission of these crucial political figures.
Needless to say, when a dictatorship resolves to do away with itself, the process that results can be long, tedious, and not entirely satisfying. There are bound to be messy compromises involved, both practical and moral -- just ask the Brazilians, the Chileans, or the South Africans. And success certainly isn't a given: Vladimir Putin hasn't found it too hard to roll back Gorbachev's experiment in liberalization.
Present-day Burma's forward progress is hardly guaranteed, either. There are still many questions about the extent to which those who held power under the old regime are willing to surrender the political and economic privileges they continue to enjoy. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give Thein Sein his due. He's a bad guy who's now trying to do something right. We should give credit to people who are capable of change. That's something that takes courage and daring. We are right to celebrate the good that he's done.
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