POLITICS AFTER COMMUNISM
FRANCOIS FURET
The Future of the Left
What
remains of the socialist idea now that the communist societies are
collapsing? This is the question that will dominate historical reflection
upon the actions of the European left in the years to come. Indeed it is
an issue that should also concern the right since, in losin g its enemy, the
right has lost not only its distinctive identity but the essence of what gave
its intellectual position in the twentieth century its most compelling
force; now it is in danger of having to argue its case in terms of mere
material interests. Still, it is the left that is directly stricken and battered
by the bankruptcy of communism. And however distorted, confisca ted,
an d ca ricatured these may already have been, its history, traditions, and
ideas are at stake.
It is possible of course to argue that from the outset, the soc ialist
and communist traditions went their separate ways, and to simply write
ofT
the October Revolution as a perversion of the socialist idea. There
are political advantages in this sort of
post facto
prophylax is, but these
must be balanced against some rather steep intellectual costs; for we are
being asked not merely to forget but to bury and to deny all that has
linked the Russian Revolution to the European left, including the non–
communist elements of it. How much there is to forget, even if we limit
ourselves to France! From the "Soviets Everywhere" proclaimed on the
banners of the Popular Front parades in 1936 to the pro-Soviet
enthusiasm of the Liberation, and from the so-called Peace Movement of
the Cold War to the vogue of Fidel Castro and his movement, the
October Revolution has cast its shadow over every subsequent generation
of the French left, far beyond the ranks of the French Communist Party.
If
this is the case, the reason for it lies first of all in the historical
connections between the Russian Revolution and the national demo–
cratic tradition and especially the tradition of the French Revolution.
The Bolsheviks were from the beginning obsessed with the Jacobin
" precedent." On the other hand, nothing can be understood of their
Editor's Note: This essay first appea red in
Le
No tlvel Observafellr,
no. 1329, April
26,
1990,
as " Les Feuilles mortes de l'utopie. Les Socialistes ont-ils encore des
idees?"
