114
PARTISAN REVIEW
the most dangerous myth of the left, especially the communist left,
and one that it shares with many who are by no means leftists [is]: the
desire to construct on earth an ideal state, one of the oldest dreams of
humanity....
Some socialists who consider themselves democratic and antito–
talitarian have also become 'enchanted with Plato' by nurturing hopes
for a 'better kind of socialism.' No one has ever succeeded in con–
structing a system that would both deserve this name and give people
at least a little more spiritual satisfaction and material prosperity than
any other system ... Today when many people are searching for a
'third way,' a self-governing republic,' or similar constructs formulated
under the slogan of 'the democratic left,' they are too echoing, how-
ever faintly, Plato. .. .
. . . If socialism . .. does not contain within itself a gnostic faith in
the inevitability of a Brave New World, if it does not promise aJ]
other kinds of happiness, what is left?
... the notion of a socialist system or even socialist ideology is
simply an ilJusion.
It may also be noted here that the most left-wing social critics in
the United States have shown little interest in or enthusiasm for the
Scandinavian systems, while they readily conferred the "socialist" title
upon an impressive number of one-party dictatorships in the third world,
which legitimated themselves with some variety of Marxism-Leninism but
failed to provide their people either with political rights or material–
econOl111C gall1s.
The Nicaraguan election was the last straw for the American left,
far more devastating than the events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union. Nicaragua was for a decade the new hope and the most cher–
ished setting for those anxiously waiting for the emergence of an inspir–
ing socialist system. While its collapse was blamed on the United States
(economic blockade, support for the
contras,
false promises of economic
assistance if the opposition won), the popular rejection of the system re–
moved the country from the itinerary of those who had difficulty reject–
ing the United States without being able to project their longings on an
existing redemptive political system. That these attitudes had a utopian or
quasi-utopian flavor is also suggested by the fact that according to recent
reports the most committed supporters, who used to live and work in
Nicaragua, are abandoning it. They do so not because the new govern–
ment is expelling them, or because there is no longer need to help
Nicaraguans to harvest coffee beans, dig wells, or build rural clinics and
schools. "The concept of construction brigade lost its flair" is how a
former volunteer put it. According to a coordinator of the Witness for
