24
PARTISAN REVIEW
not but repeat the past in breeding a perpetual succession of ruling
elites. Still others have tried to cope with their disillusionment by en–
tirely abandoning the field of politics and retreating to a position of
quietism, pacifism, and moral salvation. Meanwhile, where the Left
has ostensibly come into power, as in Great Britain, it has shown
itself to be the prisoner of the old national and imperialist drives. The
second World War has not produced any genuinely creative political
tendencies; and the pressure of Stalinism on Western Europe
is
so
powerful as to prevent their very inception.
Can we believe, then, that these are only temporary setbacks for
socialism? Or must we believe that the classic socialist position has to
be discarded? If, however, this position is still tenable, through what
instrumentalities can socialism be expected to come into being? If
the traditional belief in the necessity of revolution is still valid, what
reasons are there to think that such revolutions are not bound to raise
to power a new class of oppressors? Are any new outlooks or attitudes
needed to replace those presuppositions of the old socialist movement
that may now have become questionable-such as the faith in the
inevitability of progress, the idea that the development of socio–
economic forces in modern society will necessarily produce a socialist
consciousness, and that the proletariat is the class destined to carry
.
humanity toward the goal of a classless society?
I
AM
a democrat. .I am a socialist. And I am still a Marxist in the
sense in which one may speak of a modem biologist as still a Dar–
winian. I am a democrat because I believe that the guiding principle
of social life should be an
equality
of concern for all-individuals to
develop their personalities
freely.
I am a socialist because I believe
that the conditions upon which the moral and political ideals of de–
mocracy depend require a large measure of planning in production,
and that to be effective this planning must carry with it in basic
sectors of industry those powers of control which define social owner–
ship. I am willing to call myself a Marxist because I believe that
Marx's leading ideas, as I interpret them, and revised in the light of
the scientific method which he himself professed to follow, are better
guides to achieving socialism-if it can be achieved-than any other
alternative set of ideas known to me.
The evidence for the validity of democracy, socialism, and Marx–
ism rests on empirical considerations of varying orders of generality
