M. Revel answers the title question simply: No. He points out that "Just after

World War I, Central Europe was democratic or becoming democratic. Countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland and Hungary were more or less in between; Rumania too. Yugoslavia was half democratic. We should have been able confidently to assume that they would be democracies today. But now there is just a very slim slice of Europe--Western Europe--which is democratic." And why? "Because we never learn. We are faithful to an assumed--an alleged--international law whose definition goes back to Yalta or Helsinki, which the Soviets simply do not respect." As predictor, M. Revel was fortunately wrong, at least for the short term. As analyst of what ailed the democratic West--inordinate self-criticism, toleration of tyranny--he was exactly right, and his superbly expressed jeremiad is still valid today.