VLADIMIR TISMANEANU
Resurrecting Utopia: The Search for Myth
Under Post-Communism
Myth and magic are phenomena that belong to both archaic and modern
societies. The Third Reich, Stalin's Russia, Fidel's Cuba cannot be under–
stood in the absence of these concepts: the myth of the leader, of the
Fatherland, of the revolution . At the same time, developed industrial
democracies have their own mythologies: these constellations of com–
pelling ideas and emotions organize collective interests, passions,
animosities, and even antagonisms. "Law and order," "family values,"
"manifest destiny," "equal opportunity," "technological progress," or "new
world order" are examples of constructions of the mind that inspire simul–
taneously intense posi tive or negative atti tudes. Poli tical mythologies are
not atemporal archetypes, existing outside the environment of human his–
tory. They react to and evaluate existing forms of human organization,
legitinuze or expose political structures, and often propose either past or
future-oriented alternatives.
Myths also provide an emotive standard by which to judge the chang–
ing reality. For instance, the myth of an "originally humanist Marxism,"
supposedly betrayed by Lenin and Stalin , helped the cri tical Marxists of
East-Central Europe-the "revisionists"-formulate their rejection of
bureaucratic socialism and contributed to the dispelling of the official
hierophany. Similarly, the Trotskyites and other oppositionists attacked
Stalin in the name of the ideal patterns of an "original Bolshevism" that
the general secretary had allegedly abandoned in his quest for absolute
power. The odyssey of
perestroika
and the meaning of Mikhail Gorbachev's
tantalizing endeavor to revise the foundations of Bolshevism cannot be
grasped unless we see them as part of a search for the resurrection of the
heroic cultural ethos of revolutionary beginnings.
Indeed, when societies tend to lose their center and polarize themselves
along belligerent lines, myths not on ly try
to
explain reali ty, but also act
upon it and even supplant it. Individuals get entrapped in the mythological
discourse, accept its axiomatic prenuses and refuse to question its allega–
tions. Demagogues, tribunes, and prophets emerge who can articulate
collective hopes and anxieties in the most aggressive ways. These are
mythologists who know how to stimulate fears and ecstasies, illusions and
