attempts at constitutions by the Frenchnafter 1789, and in any case thosenattempts quickly collapsed. Burke, too,nwho died in 1797, was nothing of andemocrat; and the British system, likenthe American, evolved only cautiouslynin that direction, and by stages, betweennthe 1830’s and the 1880’s.nThere are no sudden leaps to totalnliberty: none, at least, that survive. Thenlaw of gradualism here seems wellgroundednon instances. Indian democracy,nwhich is the largest on earth, wasnfounded in 1947 on a succession ofnparliamentary enactments that begannin the late 19th century, advancingnstep by step through the 1920’s andn1930’s, and its success celebrates thenWhig principle of broadening precedent,nnot the claims of violent revolution.nSo the durability of democracy isnabove all surprising because events ofnour own century have not prepared usnfor it. The First World War ruined fournempires — the German, the Austro-nHungarian, the Russian, and the Turkish—butnthe democratic hopes thatnsucceeded them had no lasting life,nand the Second World War saw thenspread of dictatorship across Easternnand Central Europe that, by then1950’s, had achieved every appearancenof permanency. No wonder democracynwas seen by our grandparents asnidealistic and fragile. Liberals in thatnage profoundly underestimated thenpower of their own ideas, it is nownclear, under what looked like the irresistiblenmarch of events. The one-partynstates that arose in Afro-Asia soonnafter, and in Cuba, imitated the seemingnsuccess of the October Revolution,nand single-party rule based on a commandneconomy was widely supposednto be the way the world was irreversiblynmoving, for better or worse. Democracynin those days looked no more thannthe sad remnant of a Victorian dream;nso did free trade and free enterprise.nLike a cornered animal, it survived innparts of Western Europe, in Australia,nand in North America, but even to itsnloyalists it seemed at best noble, fragile,nand endangered. “We cannot afford anmultiparty state” was the confidentnword from many emerging nations,nand there was talk of harnessing thenenergies of all the people by total effortnand making a Creat Leap Forward.nWith 1989 all that has changed. Itn56/CHRONICLESnwas the one-party state that collapsed,nits military strength eroded by its ruinedneconomies; and now it is multipartyndemocracy that looks rich, practical,nand tough. Democratic Germany,nwhich has the most advanced freeneconomy in Western Europe, is swallowingnwhat once called itself thenGerman Democratic Republic withnless effort than a boa constrictor wouldntake to swallow a lamb; Mengistu’snMarxist dictatorship in Ethiopia, facednwith total collapse through poverty andncivil war, has disavowed socialism; andnCastro’s Cuba, as Soviet aid runs out,nis trying to save its skin by buildingnluxury hotels for Western tourists. Allnhighly astonishing to those who remembernthe day when Stalin, likenHitler before him, conquered democraticnneighbors with an ease thatnsometimes looked derisory. The age ofnmarching feet has given place to an agenof ballot boxes and cash registers, evennin Outer Mongolia. Democracy hasnproved practical: it is dictatorship, asnmany can now see, that in terms ofnmodern economics is unworkable andnvisionary.nAll this is the triumph of an idea.n”When we realized that we werenslaves,” said Adam Michnik, the Polishndissident, in a remark quoted withnapproval by Dahrendorf, “we knewnthat we had become citizens.” Somenslaves, of course, never realize whatnthey are, and die as slaves. So 1989nillustrates Burke’s conviction that libertynis above all a tradition and a sense ofntradition — a memory of liberty, perhapsnprehistoric, that cannot be erased.nBurke spoke of “the great primaevalncontract of eternal society,” and in thatnmomentous phrase he may have givennthe hint of an answer to the greatnquestion of the day: can one, in thenend, have free institutions without anfree market, a free market without freeninstitutions? Is freedom divisible, asnbetween economics and politics?nThe rulers of China, at least, seemnto think not. After the massacre innTiananmen Square in June 1989,nwhen the ruling party rejected thennnGorbachev way and reasserted its holdnby force, the shift towards a competitiveneconomy was halted too, as if thenconnection between the two, real ornimaginary, was seen as strong enoughnto be dangerous; and since then contractsnto private entrepreneurs havenbeen issued only sparingly as the oldnelite in Beijing has tightened its politicalngrip. That may be blind instinctnrather than reflection, but the instinctnmay be sound. Competition meansnwinners; the winners are likely to constitutena moneyed class; and such anclass can have dangerously independentnviews on how the state is to be runnand, what is more, the funds and thenleisure to advance them. History showsnfew instances of a revolutionary proletariat,nwhatever Marx may have hoped;nbut revolutionary bourgeoisies are ratherncommon, and they have a way ofnsucceeding. All that is far from tight, asnan argument, but the Chinese governmentnmay still be right to hesitate.nPresumably it knows that economicngrowth is sacrificed when it halts competition.nBut at least, for a time, itnhopes to save itself.nBurke’s speculative remark aboutnthe great primeval contract of eternalnsociety bypasses two familiar objectionsnto the Whig idea of constitutionalnliberty. One is that, as an Anglo-Saxonnidea, it arrogantiy forbids civic rights tonall but a few societies, namely thosenthat have already begun to enjoy them.nThe other is that it leaves the rest of thenworld with a Catch-22. If you cannotnachieve liberty without a tradition ofnthe Anglo-Saxon sort, it may be objected,nthen how do you begin? Thatnproblem is not hypothetical, as many innthe African states and in Latin Americanknow. Burke’s bold answer is that libertynbelongs to humanity as a species, atnleast from the birth of settled societiesn— the great primeval contract bynwhich anarchy was exchanged fornorder — and that there is a human asnwell as a national tradition of the free.nThat, in its controversial way, makesnof the human past the urgent businessnof the new age. There is work here fornhistorians, beyond a doubt; but Burkensought to widen the consciousness ofnpast events far beyond what historiansndo. The past, he believed, was indispensablyncommemorated not only innbooks but in the rites and ceremoniesnof legislatures, presidents, and constitu-n