THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM
27
the beginning and end of the First World War, and in 1933 when
Hitler rose to power. Since then together with the world community
generally, it has been paying for the consequences of those failures.
The rise of totalitarian states and the advances in military technology
have produced a new historical situation in which the whole Marxist
strategy of achieving democratic socialism must be revised.
Up to the rise of totalitarianism the main drift of historical events
could be fairly anticipated by assigning the predominant weight to eco–
nomic needs and relations, within and between states, as they disclosed
themselves in the course of capitalistic expansion and recession. After
that time, political and even moral considerations became more de–
cisive, although economic forces continued to play an important
role in narrowing the range of significant alternatives of histori–
cal action. This is best illustrated in the alignment of powers in
World War II, in which the capitalist world combined with Russia
to defeat Germany, whose economy each one regarded as closer to its
ally than to itself. But although the problems are more complex, one
can be just as scientific about moral and political factors in history
as about economic tendencies, from which they are distinguishable,
yet not separable.
The great errors of the Marxist movement did not arise only as
responses to sudden calamities. They were logical culminations of errors
of judgment and action on the specific issues of the day. Theoretical
doctrines contributed as they determined long-time patterns and habits
of thought which in turn affected feeling. Among the most fateful of
these doctrines was the view that counterposed "formal democracy" to
"real democracy," whose consequences we see all around us in these–
mantic confusion according to which Russia is a democracy of another
kind. The orthodox analysis of democracy distinguished between its
"formal" elements-the forms and processes of the expression and
registration of freely given consent-and its "real" content, the equal
enjoyment of political power and economic rights and privileges. In
the interests of this alleged "real" democracy, "formal" democracy was
disparaged. Restrictions upon it were regarded lightly if only some
change toward equality in social status and security were promised.
But the true dialectical irony of the situation was that "formal" democ–
racy turned out to be more "real"-in the sense of important for
socialist practice-than anything which was substituted for it.
I have always maintained that in key places the language of
Marx
is
couched in nineteenth-century idioms whose meaniog cannot
be
understood without some study of the philosophical and political
