Imagining the Possible : Radical Politics for Conservative Times [1 ed.] 9780203824412, 9780415932615

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IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

RadicalPolitics

for ConservativeTimes

Stephen Eric Bronner

R0UT

LED G E

NEW YORK & LONDON

Publishedin 2002 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Publishedin GreatBritain by Routledge 11 New FetterLane London EC4P4EE Copyright © 2002 by Routledge Routledgeis an imprint of Taylor & FrancisGroup. Printed in the United Statesof America on acid-freepaper Design and typography:JackDonner

All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprintedor reproducedor utilized in any form or by any electronic,mechanical,or other means,now known or hereafterinvented, including photocopyingand recording,or in any information storageor retrieval system without permissionin writing from the publisher. 10

987654321

Library of CongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Bronner,StephenEric, 1949Imagining the possible:radical essaysfor conservativetimes / StephenEric Bronner. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesand index. ISBN 0-415-93260-2- ISBN 0-415-93261-0(pbk.) 1. Post-communism.2. Socialism. 3. Democracy. 4. Internationalism. I. Title. HX44.5 .B76 2002 335-dc21 2001048114

TO FRANCES Fox PIVEN

In Memory ofRichardCloward

(I927-200Ij

CONTENTS

I

INTRODUCTION

Part I: Radical Impulses I

2

13

THE SOCIALIST PROJECT PERSISTENTMEMORIES: JEWISH ACTIVISTS AND THE GERMAN REVOLUTION OF 1919

3 4

5 6

25

IN THE SHADOW OF THE RESISTANCE: ALBERT CAMUS AND THE PARIS INTELLECTUALS

39

THE SICKNESS UNTO DEATH: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM BEFORE THE DELUGE LOOKING BACKWARDS:

57

1968 THIRTY YEARS AFTER

67

CRITICAL INTELLECTUALS, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY

73

Part II: Words and Deeds 7 8

GANDHI: NONVIOLENCE AND THE VIOLENCE OF OUR TIMES RED DREAMS AND THE NEW MILLENNIUM: NOTES ON THE LEGACY OF ROSA LUXEMBURG

9 IO

II 12

87

THE LIMITS OF METATHEORY: POLITICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE

Dialectic ofEnlightenment

A TEACHER AND A FRIEND: HENRY PACHTER REMEMBERING MARCUSE

95 103 III 123

ECOLOGY, POLITICS, AND RISK: THE SOCIAL THEORY OF ULRICH BECK

127

Part III: In Pursuit of Progress

13

TRANSFORMING THE STATE: REFLECTIONS ON THE STRUCTURE OF CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY

14

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN RADICAL PERSPECTIVE

145

(WITH ALBA ALEXANDER AND KURT JACOBSEN)

161

15 16

THE RHETORIC OF REACTION

IJ5

CONFRONTING NATIONALISM

IJ9

IJ

NEOCONSERVATISM AND THE NEW RIGHT

18

THE END OF HISTORY REVISITED

IN THE UNITED STATES AND ABROAD

185 195

ApPENDIX: AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN ERIC BRONNER

207

NOTES

213

INDEX

227

INTRODUCTION

I

MAGINING THE POSSIBLE is

not always so simple as it might seem.Especially when one thinks about politics, the imaginationis usually associated with utopia while the possibleis identified with the acceptanceof existing constraintsand the "art" of brokering compromiseswithout any senseof long-termgain or loss.Thereis somethingvaluablein settinghigh the standardof changeand rememberingthe utopian hopesraised of the past.But, too often, this occursat the expenseof fully appreciatingthe fight for reforms attendantupon fostering democracy,shorteningthe workweek, and improving the quality oflife. Neither principle nor compromisehas an exclusive claim on truth. The imagination and the possibleshould not be placed in rigid oppositionwith one another:the one often inspires the other. Under presentcircumstances,however,the connectionbetweenideals for creating the best life and plans for creating a better one is becoming increasinglytenuous.Progressiveforces have been enmeshedwithin the agendaset by their opponentsfor decades.Reinvigoratingthe left calls for reassertingpreciselythis connection.Thus, Imagining the Possiblewill highlight the shifting intersectionbetweenradical goals and immediatedemands, the exerciseof freedom and the constraintsof necessity,where we would like to go and wherewe are now. Its essayswere written under different circumstancesand for different audiences.They stretch back over more than twenty years.A few would serveas drafts and the rest revolve around themesand thinkers important for my larger projects.All the essayshave beenmore or less heavily edited in order to correct minor mistakes,mitigate redundancies,and, occasionally, bring them into line with contemporarydevelopments.But the original argumentsand claims have essentiallybeenleft intact. Theseessayssharea commonconcernwith expandingthe opportunitiesfor democraticparticipation, radicalizing the commitmentto economicjustice, and furthering internationalsolidarity. Which receivedprimacywhen dependedupon the subjectunder considerationand a judgmentof the context in which the essaywas written. Each exhibits facets of an overarchingworldview and each, after its fashion, exploresboth the existential and practical importanceof socialism,democracy,and internationalism.

2

IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

Such ideals were not exactly en vogueduring a period in which most progressiveswere trying to suppressideological differencesand the right was sharpeningits intellectual tools and implementingits reactionary agenda.With its assaulton the interventioniststateand supportfor military spending,its attack on the experimentalvalues of the 1960s and its championingof individualism, its nationalismand its commitmentto a planetaryfree market, its privileging of elites and its use of populist rhetoric, the new conservatismgeneratedinternationallyduring the last quarter of the twentieth century offered an explicitly ideological-if profoundly contradictory-program. Ratherthanenterthe fray, however,the left counteredwith the consensual and "non-ideological"strategyof self-styled"pragmatists.""New Democrats"and the partisansof "New Labor" becameintent upon seeking a "new middle" or a "third way" betweentraditional social democracyand the free market.They turned their back on the tradition of radical reform associatedwith the New Deal, the PopularFront, and the 1960s.They rejected"socialism," domesticated"democracy,"and identified "internationalism" with globalization.Nevertheless,in retrospect,the pragmatists appearnot to havebeenvery pragmaticat all. Indeed,whenthe left finally took powerin the United States,England, and Germany,its representativesfound themselvesworking within the framework of those they had once claimed to oppose.Some have now shiftedin responseto popularpressurefrom below. Still, the currentagenda hasclearlybeensetnot by the purely reactivepolitics of sophisticated"new progressives"like Bill Clinton or Tony Blair but, by thosewe often mistakenly caricaturefor their stupidity or rigidity: RonaldReaganandMargaret Thatcher.This situation is what led me to collect someessayscapableof offering some historical background,some controversialtheoretical perspectives,and somepracticalideasthat might facilitate the emergence of a radical politics for conservativetimes Imaginingthe Possibleunderstands "democracy,""socialism,"and"internationalism"in regulativeterms;it doesnot identity themwith any particular institutional arrangement.Theseideals are seenas retaining their salienceinsofaras theystill underpinanyprogressiveconfrontationwith the structuralimbalancesof power in capitalist society.They also frame the "project" of liberation by offering a conceptualbackdropfor appropriating the contributionsof other movements,including feminism, environmentalism,and the myriad postcolonialundertakingsof the non-Western world. In my opinion, without a willingness to privilege theseideals, the exploited and marginalizedwill becomeever more susceptibleto the appealsof right-wing ideologyandno genuinelyprogressivemovementwill evenbe conceivable. This volume is divided into three complementaryparts in which the essays,more or less,logically follow one another."Radical Impulses,"the first part provides a historical overview for the volume by highlighting

INTRODUCTION

3

certaineventsand movementsthat shapedleft politics during the twentieth century."Words and Deeds,"the secondsection,critically engagesthe thinking of certainindividualswho influencedmy intellectualdevelopment and who, I believe,still have somethingto offer the future. "In Pursuit of Progress,"the third part, is comprisedof essaysdealingwith the institutional constraintsand certain crucial tasksfor building a progressivepolitics. Having said this, however,consideringthe essaysthemselvesmight proveusefulboth for gaining a senseof the structureof the volume and the coherenceof its parts. "Radical Impulses"beginswith an early draft of what, in 1990,would becomemy first larger effort in political theory: Socialism Unbound(2nd Edition: Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000). Influenced by the ultra-left gauchisteperspectiveof the 1960s,with its emphasison the selfadministrationof the working class,"The SocialistProject"probablyretains a certain antiquarianflavor given the neoliberal shift in social democracy and the new commitmentto democracyon the part of manyWesternexcommunist parties. The problem is indeed now not the prevalenceof reformism but its absence,and not the inability to perceivethe virtues of democracy,but the willingness to tame its radical potential. Publishedin 1980anddedicatedto Rudi Dutschke,the greatoratorwho was also a moral compassfor the internationalstudentmovement,"The SocialistProject" is informed by the belief in a "third way" that attemptsto move "beyond" social democraticreformism and communistauthoritarianismrather than "beyond"left and right. Aside from providing a certainframeworkfor what follows, indeed,it provides both a senseof how the self-understandingof the left haschangedand an attemptto retrievea lost radical tradition. "PersistentMemories:JewishActivists and the GermanRevolutionof 1919" examineshow this tradition receivedpractical expression.The libertarian revolts of 1919 occurredamid the revulsion producedby World War I and the euphoriageneratedby the RussianRevolution. Nineteennineteen was the year in which both the imaginationand the possiblewere pushedto the limit. Attemptswere undertakenin manycountriesto introduceworkers'councils,and intellectualsplayeda decisiverole. In Germany, many were Jewish: Rosa Luxemburg, Kurt Eisner, Eugen Levine, and others. Anti-Semites saw them as part of the supposedworldwide conspiracyagainst"Christian" civilization that I would treat extensivelyin A RumorabouttheJews:Reflectionson Anti-Semitismandthe ''Protocols ofthe LearnedElders of Zion" (New York: St. Martin's Press,2000). This essay shows how certain cosmopolitanand seculartrendswithin Jewish culture blendwith the bestvaluesof the radicallabor movement. Libertariansocialismhas always had an uneasyrelationshipwith the communistmovement.The RussianRevolution may have initially inspired many of its partisans,but therewas nonethelessa certain moral incompatibility betweenthe communistand anticommunistwings of the left. This becomesabundantlyevident in the work of Albert Camus.

4

IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

He was not a man of the ultraleft, but he was more radical than the social democraticmainstream.Camuswas concernedwith placing limits on action, counteringthe burgeoningtechnocraticethos,and contesting the ambitions of utopian revolutionaries.He is now perhapsbest rememberedfor his existential concernsas well as the "Mediterranean moderation"and the anticommunistattitude exhibited in his famous debateof the early 1950S with Jean-PaulSartre.Nevertheless,there is more to consider. "In the Shadowof the Resistance:Albert Camusand the ParisIntellectuals" proved the sketchfor what would ultimately becomean intellectual biographytided Camus:Portrait of a Moralist (Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress,1999). It dealswith the political maturationof Camusin the brilliant intellectualcircle of Parisfollowing World War II, his efforts in the realmof theory,andsomeof the mostimportantpolitical controversiesof his epoch.Camusis presentedhere as a genuinehumanistwith progressive convictionswhosepolitical judgmentswere often flawed. "In the Shadowof the Resistance"also exploresthe way in which real constraintscan inhibit progressivepolitical action.It indeedsuggeststhatnot everypolitical conflict hasroom for a positivesolutionandthat historycanunderminethe ability of eventhe mostinsightful to link interestwith principle. "The Sicknessunto Death: InternationalCommunismbefore the Deluge,"by the sametoken, insists that the attemptitself has an intrinsic political value. Surrenderingprinciple in the nameof interestsuccumbing to an unreflectiverealismor pragmatism,corrodescivic virtue and political commitment.The essay,in this vein, examineshow communistswastedthe moral high groundinheritedfrom the "heroic" periodof the RussianRevolution that extendedfrom 191{23. Arguably more than the bureaucratic incompetenceof a tottering state,or even the self-servingeconomicpolicies of its elites, it claims that a growing abandonmentof radical idealsalwaysjustified by recourseto the demandsof "necessity" and the needto understandwhat is "possible"-producedthe existentialexhaustionand collapseof the communistimaginationthat culminatedin 1989. Originally written for an East Europeanaudience,informed by the argumentsof Socialism Unboundand MomentsofDecision: Political History and the Crises of Radicalism(New York: Routledge,1992), "The Sickness Unto Death" was an attemptto undercutany lingering nostalgiafor the communistmovementsand regimesof times past.Uncritical nostalgiafor even the best of movements,in fact, can only prove self-defeating. Attempting somemechanicaltransferof radical strategiesfrom one period into anotheris always self-defeating.This pertainsnot merelyto the organizationalapproachof a decrepitcommunisttradition, and the economism of social democracy,but evento the 1960s. Sucha strategyinvolves a betrayalof the imaginationand, necessarily, a misperceptionof the possible.Ideals should take on a new content and organizationsa new form in new circumstances.How traditional

INTRODUCTION

5

radical ideals and questionsof organizationwere adaptedto confront new conditionsand new expressionsof protestby new constituenciesbecomes particularly clear when one considersthe 1960s.What I termeda "mass association,"more than a simple coalition of interestsyet less than a party, appearedon the horizon as the civil rights movementallied itself first with the antiwar movementand then with the "poor peoples'movement."It becamepossibleto envisagea linkage betweenthe extensionof democratic participation,a new foreign policy, and the demandfor economicjustice. Traditional notions of democracy,socialism,and internationalismtook a newform andreceiveda newcontent.Indeed,if only to contestthe increasingly sanitizedimage of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., I included a short speechdealingwith his radical legacytitled "Looking Backwards." Action is inspired by ideas and, in this regard,the purveyorsof ideas still have a role to play. "Critical Intellectuals,Politics, and Society" investigatesthe way they havebeeninterpreted,the constraintsupon them, and someof the tasks they face. It suggeststhat there is not just one form of intellectualwork andthat intellectualscanintervenein any numberof ways. There is room for the humanistintellectual in supportof pluralism, the technocratwith a conscience,and the universalthinker who somehow always winds up interfering in what is supposedlynot his business.But there is also somethingcommonto critical intellectualsno matterwhat their field or approach:the refusal to compromisetheir knowledge,their ability to face the new, and their commitmentto foster the will to know. Thus, I think, "Critical Intellectuals,Politics, and Society" servesas an excellenttransitionto the next section. "Words and Deeds"constitutesan expressionof gratitudeto a few peopleand works that influencedthe left in generaland my own thinking in particular.This secondpart of Imagining the Possiblebeginswith a speech,given the daybeforethe retaliatorybombingof Mghanistanbegan, which dealswith Gandhiandhis legacyof nonviolence.It makesreference to the tragic eventsof II September2001,the day of the attackon theWorld Trade Centerand the Pentagonby Islamic fanatics, in evaluatingthe salienceof his views in developinga secularrule of political conductfor our time. Gandhi saw recourseto violence as an expressionof weaknessand nonviolenceas an expressionof strengthand a way of developingmoral maturity on the part of the individual. His was a philosophyand a movement that would have profound influence on Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela,and amongmany in my generation.But the lingering moral and practicalquestioninvolves whethernonviolenceshouldbe seen in absolute terms. It is incumbent to consider whether the use of nonviolenceby a massmovementintent upon reforming or seizinga state is appropriateas the strategyfor a statefacedwith an egregiousassaulton its citizens,an occasionin which crime blendswith war, and a situationin which a lack of symmetryexists betweenthe intentionsof actors and the consequences of their actions.

6

IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

The next essaydealswith Rosa Luxemburg.She has beenwith me since I first translateda selectionof her letters in 1978 and then, in 1981, brought out a slim biography,RosaLuxemburg:A Revolutionaryfor Our Times (University Park: PennsylvaniaStateUniversity Press,1997) that is still in print. The essayincludedhere,"Red Dreamsand the New Millennium: Noteson the Legacyof RosaLuxemburg,"is critical of her Marxism and many of the assumptionsthat she made.But its primary intent is to identify what is salientin her thought.Luxemburgremainsfor me the great symbol of libertarian socialism,and her internationalistvalues along with her emphasisuponfosteringthe"creativetension"betweenmovementsand organizationsstill inform my understandingof radical politics. Luxemburgwould probablyhave had little sympathyfor the Dialectic ofEnlightenment(1947) by Max HorkheimerandTheodorAdorno.Yet this classicwork of "critical theory," so powerful in its anthropologicaland philosophicalanalysis,so rich in its insightsandin its useof new categories like the "culture industry," would exert a profoundinfluence on the young intellectualsof 1968. I was amongthoseinspired by it and my interestin critical theory has neverwavered.But this is one of its seminalworks that most requirespolitical critique. "The Limits of Metatheory" is indeedpart of a more generalencounterwith this tradition begunin OfCritical Theory andIts Theorists(2nd Edition: New York: Roudedge,2002). "The Limits of Metatheory" conteststhe unqualifiedcritique ofinstrumental reason in the name of a supposedlyrepressedsubjectivity; it is skepticalof the refusalto articulatedifferencesbetweenpolitical partiesand movements;and it rejectsthe foundationalargumentfor what havebecome fashionableinterpretationsof the Enlightenmentas the sourceof Nazism and the "totally administeredsociety."The essayalso calls into questionthe attemptto renderpolitical and historicaljudgmentsthrough metaphysical andanthropologicalargumentsunconcernedwith the theoryandpracticeof actualmovementsandinstitutions.This contributionto the presentvolume consequentlyinsists upon the primacyof the political momentfor any new philosophicaldevelopmentsin critical theory and,without denigratingthe cultural contributionsothertraditionsmight offer, the centralityof enlightenmentpolitical valuesfor a genuinelyprogressivepolitical project. My intellectualwork has,in general,stressedthe primacyof the political and sought to anchor the socialist project in the enlightenment heritage.Thesethemeswould have appealedto Henry Pachter.An activist in both the communistandsocialdemocraticmovements,an intellectualof the old schoolwhoseworks rangedfrom a study of Paracelsusto a history of Sovietforeign policy, he recognizedboth the practicalinfluenceof ideas and the needfor speculation.Insistentupon usingphilosophyto illuminate lived history, as well as the constraintsand opportunitiesoffered by practical politics, he was a socialistwho neverbelievedthat socialismoffered a solution to the humancondition. Pachterfirst taught me the classicsof Marxism and critical theory at the City College of New York in the late

INTRODUCTION

7

1960sand early 1970S'The essayincluded here servedas the introduction to my edition of Socialismin History: Political EssaysofHenry Pachter(New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press,1984). If the realist strain of my thinking derived from the influence of Pachter,however,the more utopianstrainsderivedfrom a different source. "RememberingMarcuse"waswritten for a panelcommemoratingthe tenth anniversaryof his death.He was one of the most important intellectual influenceson the rebelsof I968. Thousandswould cometo hearhim speak at the Sorbonneor the Free University of Berlin or at Berkeley.Unfortunately, however,interestin his writings has waned.And perhapsthis is understandable in a moreconservativeage.Marcusecalledupon his readers to engagein the "greatrefusal"of a "one-dimensional"society.And he knew somethingaboutthe operationaldynamicsof institutions.But he was especially sensitiveto the catalytic role of marginal groups like women and minorities, and he always privileged the movementover any organization. Marcuseemployedthe critical method in a unique manner.His thinking indeed highlighted not merely the repressedsubjectiveexperienceof freedom,but the inquiry into utopia and, by extension,the needfor politics to addressa new set of existentialproblems. Unveiling the sourcesof theseproblemsis amongthe aims of Ulrich Beck. His Risk Society,which has by now becomea classic,highlights the mannerin which modernity is not simply engagedin an assaultupon subjectivity but rather tends to liberate it. Choicesbecomemultiplied, lifestyles changeat the drop of a hat, traditional political institutions lose their efficacy, and new social movementsevidencea new concernwith the quality of life: that is modernityfor Beck. No less than many of the most famous critical theorists,to be sure, he is unable to deal with issuesof bureaucraticself-interestor institutional power. Beck overestimatesthe extent to which institutions lost their power in favor of new social movements,the irrelevanceof old-fashionedmaterial issuesrelative to new concernswith the quality of life, and the transcendence of old divisions betweenleft and right. "Ecology, Politics, and Risk: Considerationson the Social Theory of Ulrich Beck" exploressome of my disagreementswith him. Nevertheless,it also expressesmy admirationfor his daring thought experimentin which new categoriesare articulatedfor making senseof politics in a new era. "In Pursuitof Progress"is the concludingpart of ImaginingthePossible. Its essaysare less concernedwith historical eventsor individuals thanwith the institutional constraints,the tasks,and the generalideas that the left must confront. The statehas not gone away; its reforms are a matter of crucial concern;the right is employingspecific rhetoricalstrategies,and its influence has only grown both ideologically and practically. The essays included here deal with thesemattersin a critical fashion yet from a positive standpoint.They are fueled by my concernwith developinga new critical theory with public aims. Each essayin its own way highlights the

8

IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

connectionbetweenprinciple and interest,movementsand institutions, freedomand its constraints,without surrenderingto the given or escaping into utopia. "Transformingthe State: Reflectionson the Structureof Capitalist Democracy"providesa framework for dealingwith someof theseissues. It emphasizesthe tensionswithin "capitalist democracy"and existing structuralimbalancesof power along with their impact on political actors. The essaymaintainsthat bureaucraticinstitutions remain the crucial locus for political change,and not merelythat they canbe influencedby the organized actionsof citizens,but that radical action from below is the precondition for any meaningfulintroductionof reformsfrom above.In this same vein, the degreeof arbitrarypowerexercisedby capitalis still seenas dependent upon the degreeof organizationaland ideological disunity among working people.Thus,it becomesnecessaryto considerthe needfor a "class ideal" capableofidenti£Ying interestscommonto all working peoplein each of the new social movementswithout privileging the concernsof anyone movementin particular. Treating classin political rather than purely economicterms makesit possibleto judge any given reform in a strategicratherthan merelya functional manner:this becomesclear from "Affirmative Action in Radical Perspective."The essayemphasizesthe way in which, from the first, affirmative action servedas a moderateresponseto the call for a more radical set of interlinked programsintent upon achievingfull employment.Its point is not to denythe achievementsof affirmative actionin helpingcreate a level playing field and bring excludedgroups into certain mainstream occupations.By narrowingthe senseof what was possible,however,the left wound up in the position of defendingameliorativeprogramsthat split its own constituency-or,to put it anotherway, pit "race" against"class."There should be no misunderstanding:defenseof existing programsremains necessarygiven the reactionaryassaulton the welfare stateand the continuing problemsassociatedwith racism.Nevertheless,this essayinsistsupon the importanceof imagining a new class-basedform of affirmative action that might mitigate existing tensionsamongexploitedgroupsand serveas an exampleof what Andre Gorz once termeda "nonreformistreform." Leftists would be wise to consider,of course,the possibleobjectionsof conservativesto such a program."The Rhetoric of Reaction,"which was originally publishedas a review of a book with the sametitle by Albert Hirschman,explains someof his important insights into how right-wing thinkers criticize reformist policies and how they rhetoricallyjustify their own positions.He evenexploresthe way in which the assumptionsof the left seemto becomedefined by those they oppose.But what resultsfrom the inquiry of this particularlyinfluential political scientistis the vision of a level playing field, a free arenain which various forms of rhetoric engage eachother, without referenceto differencesof interest,conflicting ideals, and structuralimbalancesof power. Understandingthe historical struggle

INTRODUCTION

9

betweenopposingforces is obscuredby employinga metaphysicalform of interpretationdivorced from any genuineconcernwith movementsand institutionsandinterests.The situationis no different whenpolitical interestsand strategiesare ignored in favor of the rhetoric usedby their partisans:the political is therebystrippedof politics. When consideringcontemporaryforces of reaction,of course,a person might concludethat the dead do not always stay dead. One might think that a cursory look at the history of the twentieth century would make reflective supportersof nationalismskepticalabout the dangersassociated with this inherently parochial ideology. Despite the way in which new global economic and environmental issues are dwarfing the problemsolving capacitiesof even the bestgovernments,however,its attractionhas only grown with the demiseof the old labormovementand colonial revolutions of the postwarera."ConfrontingNationalism"calls upon progressives to contestthis trend.It raisesthe needfor a choicebetweenan old notion of "self-determination"predicatedon national sovereignty,which surrenders any seriouschanceof dealingwith pressingplanetaryproblems,and a new internationalismfocusedupon a burgeoningset of transnationalorganizations still in needof radical democraticreform. Indeed,while much of the left still vacillates,the new reactionarieshavealreadymadetheir choice. "Neoconservatismand the New Right in the United Statesand Abroad,"in this vein, refusesto equatethe pastwith the present.The 1930S are over and the offspring is different from the parent.Even conservative elites in the more industrializednationshave madetheir peacewith capitalist democracy;the far right haslost its revolutionaryspirit; and imperialist ambitions have, for the most part, withered away. But there is still a residueof the old xenophobia,if in somewhatmore temperedform, and the sameauthoritarianimpulses.The moderncausesare different: new forms of nationalcompetitioncausedby the global transformationof capitalism; industrial jobs disappearingor appearingthreatenedby immigration; the assaulton the welfare state and the growth of big government.The new ideologyof "friendly fascism" and"neoconservatism," which fusescommitment to the free marketwith know-nothingpopulism, still speaksto the losers:atavistic sectorsof the economy,provincial communitiesthreatened by change,and malcontentson the fringes. In my opinion, however,the more pressingdangerderives from those in the conservativemainstream who seekto "integrate"ratherthan unequivocallycondemntheir more reacThey take democracytoo much for granted. tionary associates. But that is perhapsunderstandable.Liberal constitutionalismceased beingmerelythe provinceof Westernstatesin the yearsbetweenthe crumbling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapseof the Soviet Union in 1992.Just as revolution was breakingout in EasternEurope,however,the "end of history" becamea popular topic of discussion.The political imagination had seeminglyculminatedin the liberal capitaliststateand a global free market.No ideals,new or old, appearedin needof realization.A "sad

10

IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

time" of mediocrity and consumerismloomed, and few anticipatedthe disillusionmentthat the attemptsat capitalist "shock therapy" and the forces of globalizationwould bring in their wake. I concludedMomentsofDecisionwith a critical responseto the "end of history" thesisthat remarkedupon the unfulfilled legacyof internationalism while Ideas in Action: Political Tradition in the TwentiethCentury (Lanham, Maryland: Rowmanand Littlefield, 1999) highlightedthe emergenceof an internationalcivil societyandwhat might be termeda "cosmopolitansensibility." In the meantime,however,the original thesis concerning"the end of history" becameever more surely identified with the even cruderbelief that "there is no alternative"and the idea that we had somehowmoved "beyond" left and right had becomeirrelevant.Thus, I decidedto use the opportunityof a speakingengagementat the University of Leipzig in the summerof 2001, following the antiglobalizationdemonstrationsin Seattle and Qyebec,to write "The End of History Revisited." Highlighting the conflict betweenliberal and illiberal movementsand philosophieshasbecomeof particularimportancein the light of September II, 2001. The more fanatical partisansof religious fundamentalismhave turned terror into an internationalweaponin attackingnot merely global capitalism,but the secularvaluesassociatedwith liberalism, socialism,and internationalism.Modernity does not abolish the pre-modern:one step forward in one direction producesone step back in another.But the real conflict is not betweenthe WestandIslam, or the secularand the religious, but betweenthosewho privilege liberal notions of toleranceand those would insist upon abolishingall views and life-styles other than their own violence and repression.This conflict hasnow takenan internationalform. Initiating a progressiveform of planetarypolitics thus becomesperhapsthe mostbasictaskfor engagedintellectualsand this, in turn, requiresan ability to specifYin newways the intersectionsbetweenprinciplesandinterest,the imaginationand the possible,the unrealizedpossibilitiesof the pastand the constraintsof the present. Imaginingthe Possibleis intendedas a small contributionto further such efforts. Its essayswere not written to offer policy prescriptionscapableof being instantly translatedinto practiceby liberal politicians, they were not particularlyuseful for building a careerin the discipline of political theory, andtheywere not directedtowardthe intellectualmainstream.Eachafterits of fashionsoughtinsteadto fosterthe spirit of resistance,createan awareness rapidly erodingradicaltraditions,andprovokereflectionamongthoseon the outsidewho, perhapsquixotically, envision a new movementor who, more modestly,remaincommittedto protestingthe inequitiesand constraintsof the existingorder.Indeed,if theseessaysinterrogatethe pastandadmit mistakes,theyalsosuggestthat sobrietyneednot dampenidealismor respectfor thosewho sacrificedin the hopeof creatinga betterworld. STEPHEN ERIC BRONNER, NEW YORK CITY

PART I

Radical Impulses

I THE SOCIALIST PROJECT In Memory of Rudi Dutschke

T

HE HISTORY OF SOCIALISM exhibits somethingprofoundlyparadoxical:

its very successhastruncatedits potentialfor liberation.This is as true for the social democraticmovement,which can claim the welfare stateto its credit, as for the communistmovementwhoseleaderssoughtto live off the image of a heroic past.It would benefit only sectarians,however,if "socialism" were preservedfrom history, and were given some purely abstractdefinition. In reality, the word hasbeenappropriatedby the most disparatepolitical and economicformations: state capitalist and neomercantilist governmentsheadedby military elites,reformist partiesdedicated to parliamentarydemocracy,and authoritarianregimes basedon the conceptof the "dictatorshipof the proletariat,"as well as statesand movementsthat soughtto mergesocialismwith religion. Where socialismemergedas a programfor revolutionaryreconstruction, it originally soughtto link particular transitionaldemandswith the overridinggoal of an emancipatedsocietybasedon economicequality and full political participation.!What occurredinstead,however,is that supposedly"transitional"concernswith industrialization,planning,and nationalization attained the status of ultimate goals. As a consequence,the coherenceof the socialistprojecthasbeenshattered;its truly radicalgoalssuch as the abolition of a stultifYing division of labor and the creationof a "free association"of producers-havebeen suppressedin the name of exigenciesideologicallylegitimatedby a host of repressiveinstitutions. Of course,real movementsand real regimesare imperfect.They never fulfill the goals that require such incredible sacrifices.Yet the rationalefor socialismmayprovide the basisfor a critique of thosemovementsandstates that employthe term to legitimaterepression.Sucha critique mustreassert the needfor coherencebetweenimmediateconcernsand ultimate goals.It should also illuminate the gap betweenthe progressivegains achievedand the hope ofliberation.

This article was first publishedin SocialResearch47, no. I (spring1980): n-35.

14

IMAGINING THE POSSIBLE

THE MEANING OF SOCIALISM

In its Marxist formulation, socialismwas conceivedas a transitionalstage betweenthe overthrowof capitalismand the actualizationof communism. As an idea of social and political transformation,it was appropriatedby movementswhoseideologyit becameuntil, finally, it cameto standfor the set of institutions that thesemovementsrealizedin the nameof the idea. This idea may rest on a utopian abstractionor a social theory claiming scientific precision,or even simply the demandfor a set of social reforms. It may guide the movementin terms of specific policy decisions,or it may serve as nothing more than a mere ideological shibboleth.In turn, the movementmay be a tightly organized"vanguard"party of revolutionary intellectuals,or it may be a massorganizationwith democraticvalues;its basemay vary from peasantsto industrial workers to the "new working class" of bureaucrats,professionals,and the like. Finally, with regard to institutions, the achievementsof "socialists" may be countedin terms of legislative successes,social or welfare gains, effectivenessin influencing Alternatively, the foreign policy, or ways of building class consciousness. institutions createdby a socialist movementmay be defined as a "revolutionary" challengeto capitalismor imperialism.2 In this mazeof current definitions,actualizations,and possibilities,the fundamentallyradical point is usually obfuscated:Socialismwas meantto provide a new form of democraticcontrol over the economyand new humanisticvalues for directing it. Socialismitself was neverthe utopianalternative,but its rationalelay in the policiesthatwere pursuedand the forces thatwere unleashed in the pursuit of its ideals. Of course,the needfor certaincompromisescanbe justified evenfrom a revolutionarystance.Antonio Gramsciand othershavearguedthat even after the political breakwith the past, a revolutionarygovernmentmust develop a mode of coming to terms with the past. Most had the Russian Revolution specifically in mind, but they make a more generalpoint: the new social forces can nevertotally obliteratethe totality of social relations inheritedfrom the past.If the massesare still only emergingfrom the past, then the political movementis constrainedto compromisepreciselyfor the sake of its own future "hegemony."This compromiseinvolves nothing other than the "revolutionaryrestoration"of certainolder valuesin orderto guaranteethe possibility of a more profoundtransformationin the future.3 Socialistsoften look to the developmentof capitalism for inspiration. While growing within feudalism, capitalismwas alreadyforming the social institutions and economicarrangementsthat it then proceeded to realize through political revolution. The sameprocess,however, cannothold for the proletariat.4 A new socialist set of social relations does not organically arise within capitalism.As Lukacs suggested,the reification processpenetratesthe consciousness of the proletariatSand damagesits ability to form a liberatedset of values.Also, sincecapitalism

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cannotcompletelyresolvethe contradictionsof earlier historical stages, what Bloch termed"nonsynchronouscontradictions"6find their way into the proletarianconsciousness as well. This has implicationsfor what can be expectedfrom modern socialism even as it raisesdoubts about the orthodox model of revolution for highly industrializedcountries. Most partisansof the First, the Second,and the Third International looked to the French Revolution as the prototype for the future proletarian victory.7 The partisansof theseinternationalsall soughtto build a political understandingof classsolidarity while the establishmentof new social relationswas viewed either as the purposeof a new revolutionary state or presupposedwithin the achievementof step-by-stepreforms. Thereis a historicaljustification for this attitude insofar as Marx himself retainedthe Jacobinnotion of revolution, especiallyin the Communist Manifesto.Nowheredid he ever disclose,however,the mannerby which the proletariatwas to constituteitself or what institutional arrangements it shouldintroduce.8 The lack of such a discussionindicatesmore than a mere rejection of utopian speculation;if there were an immanent connectionbetweenthe dissolution of capitalism and the rise of a new set of proletariansocial relations,then the categoriesfor theserelations should have beenelaborated.Yet, while Marx choseto ignore this issue in a generalsystematicsense,he sawin practical termswhat was at stake. Thus, in the "Critique of the Gotha Programme,"Marx criticized the failure of the nascentSocial DemocraticParty of Germany(SPD) to envision a transitional state that would constructthe preconditionsfor the new communistsociety.9 The questionthen ariseshow thesepreconditionsmay be conceptualized and what role "actually existing" socialiststatesplay in creatingthem. The taskis mademore difficult preciselybecausethe transitionalstatemust be dealt with "not as it has developedon its own foundations,but, on the contrary,just as it emergesfrom capitalist society,which is thus in every respect,economically,morally, and intellectually, still stampedwith the birthmarks of the old societyfrom whosewomb it emerges."10Caught betweenthe societythat is to be overcomeand the one that is yet to be created,the transitionalstatewill remainwithout direction, focus, or even legitimacy,unlessthe emphasisupon an alternativesocietyto capitalismis retainedin the policies that are pursued. REVOLUTION AND REFORM

The Westernsocial democraticpartiesand statesare currently facing this loss of orientation.Partially in responseto the gradualismof dominant tradeunions,partially in reactionto the Leninist deploymentof the "dictatorship of the proletariat,"the major socialist movementslong ago abandonedrevolutionaryMarxism in favor of the reformist path whosetheory was formulatedby EduardBernstein.11 Since he no longer saw any objec-

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tive necessityfor a capitalistcrisis, socialismno longerseemedeither"objectively" necessaryor historically "inevitable"; instead,it becamean "ethical" demandof which other classesand groupswithin the society had to be persuaded.Consequently,Bernsteinviewed socialismas an "evolutionary" developmentthat would unfold within capitalismand find its bedrockin parliamentarydemocracy.Through electoralactivity, guaranteedby the acquisition of civil liberties, the causeof the working class would be promulgatedwhile the stability necessaryfor increasingaffluencewould be assured.Becausecapitalism had stabilized,and through democracyhad allowed for the activity of a proletarianparty to gain reforms,concernwith the revolutionarygoal had becomeuseless,if not counterproductive,and it was the movementthat had to be stressed.Thus, accordingto Bernstein, "the movementis everything,thegoal is nothing."

Bernstein'stheoreticalposition is predicatedon a commitmentto reform increasinglylacking in contemporarysocial democraticmovements.His concernwas not whetherclasscontradictionswould continue to exist.12 He was more preoccupiedwith legislation that might more equitablydistribute income,assuresocial services,and createa "partnership" betweenlabor and capital. Accepting the thesis that capitalismis learning to deal with crises,prior to the 1990S,mainstreameconomists of social democracyadoptedKeynesianor neo-Keynesianpolicies of state intervention in the economy,deficit spending,subsidiesfor desirable productiongoals,and "direction" of the flow of capital.The twofold aim of modernsocial democracywas to maintainthe stability of the existing apparatusand to gain economicbenefitsthroughthe involvementof the state.Becausethey viewed electoralpolitics as the only arenafor change, moreover,social democratsbeganappealingto the "middle class"and the professionalstrata.And so, while the bulk of their membershipcontinues to be working-class,social democraticpartieslong ago ceasedto consider themselvesas "proletarian."They increasinglysoughtto presentthemselvesas "national" partieswilling to sacrifice the interestsof workersfor the "national interest" and intent upon allocating "public" goods to "private" individuals.13 The electoralsuccessof social democracyis undeniable,thoughit was built on a belief in compromisethat would erode the movement'smore radical commitments.Other historical factors, however,preparedthe ground for this development.Since the proletariatfought the battlesof the bourgeoisiein 1789 and 1848, an "elective affinity" (Weber) resulted betweenthe proletariatand bourgeoisdemocracywhere capitalism achievedhegemony.In addition, the trade unions taughtthe early social democraticparties a reformist tactic that they would transferfrom the economicto the political arena.The party and the unionswere originally consideredthe "twin pillars" of the working class.14 The necessityfor a party derivedfrom the idea that the immediateeconomicdemands,with which unions concernedthemselves,had to be translatedinto political

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ones. But, insofar as no explicit practical relation was ever established betweenthesetwo workers' organs,it is not surprisingthat the social democratictheory of revolution should have remainedvague at best or that an essentiallyreformist standpointshouldhavebeenprevalentin the movementfrom the start.15 Despitebroaderdiscussionsat party conventionsof internationalism, antimilitarism, and the massstrike, specific reformswere emphasizedin the practical arenaand the systemas a whole was called into question only rhetorically.The electoralpath, and the successof that path, helped to createa party bureaucracy.16This allowed for the continuationand promulgationof the movementover time, while giving the party organization a stakein maintainingthe statusquo. The socialistmovementthus beganto take on the aura of moderationand respectability,particularly after World War IY Marx recognizedthe concretebasis for this developmentwhen he criticized the old SPD for having"taken over from the bourgeoiseconomists the considerationof distribution as independentof the mode of productionand hencethe presentationof socialismas turning principally on distribution."18 Splitting off distribution from productionresults in more than a tactical adaptationof social democracyto the existing order. With such a view, it is impossibleto conceptualizethe relation between productionand consumptionin termsof the reproductionof societyas a whole.19 The state remainsinviolate: the notion of workers' councils never enters into the equation.The state becomesthe mechanism throughwhich social democracyachievesits gains.In emphasizingdistribution to the detrimentof production,the social democratscan justify their emphasisupon electoralactivity while presupposingthe continuous operationand ability of the bourgeoisstateto meetthe needsof modern production. There is a sensein which, from this perspective,social democrats almost always were willing to serve as "managersof capitalism." For preciselyinsofar as parliamentarydemocracyrestsupon capitalist social relations,the attempt to transformthesesocial relations standsoutside the province of social democraticpolitics. Thesesocial relations range from the continuedexistenceof the law of value to bureaucraticrationalization, resulting in alienationand 'reification, to "commodityfetishism" and the capitalistdivision oflabor. "Classconsciousness" is consequently identified with supportof specific reforms,while the needto developan alternativesocial structureis disregarded. To call for a restructuringof thesesocial relationswould necessarily questionboth the bourgeoisstateand the entiretrajectoryof modernsocial democracy.Attempts to introducefundamentalstructuralchangeswould obviouslyimpedeattemptsto gain supportfrom the "middle" classesaswell as from the more conservativesectorsof the working class-andthe price would be paid in electorallosses.Both the Frenchand the Germansocial

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democratshave resistedattemptsby radical factions to turn their policies to the left. Seekingto remain in the movementas long as possible,these factions have traditionally representedthe idea of a more profound transformation, andfor this reasonthey haveoften beendriven from the broader party or isolatedwithin it.2o Social democratsopposedthe RussianRevolution, the uprisings of 1918-1923,and the radical undertakingsin France,Greece,and Italy that followed World War II, aswell as the more radical tendenciesof 1968.Such spontaneousand extraparliamentarymovementsclearly poseda dangerto the electoralpaths of social democracy.But the responseto them also revealedthe looming identity dificit of socialdemocracy:for the sakeof past achievements,it sacrificed a radical future, and even those past achievementsit would ultimately provewilling to compromisein the nameof new electoralexigencies.Becausesocial democracyidentifies socialismwith distribution, and democracywith the existing parliamentarysystem,a certainfinished quality pervadesit. Compromisegains a political value in its own right: it is no longer embracedmerely as a tactic, but rather as a strategy,and a matter of course.21 Consequently,social democratsoften becomemyopic when they are faced with radical developmentsand ideological movementslike thoseassociatedwith the 1960s. Socialdemocracyconfinessocialismwithin the realmof civil societyand associatesit, almostexclusively,with nationalization,legislation,and social services.But suchprogramsare not unique to socialism.Liberal capitalist governments,theocracies,and even fascist regimescan introducethem. Where social democratsare devotedto civil liberties, often to the point at which it becomesa fetish, democracybecomescircumscribedwithin the pluralistic political arenaof the parliamentarystate.The refusalto undertake a critique of the structuralrelationsof capitalism,the dismissalof the need for an alternative,leadssocial democracyinto a position where it can offer its public only greaterproductivity and more equaldistribution as the status quo definesthem.The lack of a programintent upon reconstructingwork relationsor extendingdemocracyinto the productionprocessdulls the fundamentaldifferencethat should exist betweensocial democraticand otherparties.It is consequentlydifferenceson specificissues,and not structurally divergentcritical outlooks,that provide the basisof choicebetween partiesthat competefor supportfrom the center.22 Naturally, this cannotbe seenin a rigid manner.Specificconcernsmay retain practicaland evenradical symbolicvalue, as in the caseof nationalization with regardto the English, French,and Italian workers. Also, in given situations,thesespecific differencesmayproveof varying importance; some may involve ephemeralor transitory concerns,while others may involve issuesthat have alreadycongealedinto generalpolicies. Liberal capitalistandsocialdemocraticparties,for example,havemostly supported free tradeand regionalism,while communistandright-wing partiesfavored nationalismand protection.Though,by andlarge,workershavecontinued

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to give their electoralsupportto social democraticregimesin Western Europe,there is a questionof how deepthis attachmentstill runs. A growing apathyamonglarge sectionsof the young, the rise of what hasbeencalled"the new inwardness,"and the crasscynicismthat greetstalk of "socialism" in everydayintercoursearecertainlylinked to the technocratic stancethat the social democraticmovementhas chosento take.There are structuralreasonsfor this development.But social democracyhas also contributedto the processinsofar as it hasjettisonedits own radical tradition. Eventssuch as the Paris Communeservedas symbolsfor the young social democrats,and theoristslike RosaLuxemburg,Henriette RolandHolst, andAnton Pannekoekoriginally developedtheir views in the radical currentof early social democracy.Their views on the councilsand the mass strike, "proletarianself-administration"(Selbsttatigkeit),and internationalism aroseonce againin the 1960s.Even now, they might invigoratewhat has becomea staid, stodgy,and often reactionarysocial democracy.Disaffection and alienationcannotsimply be dismissed.They posereal threats to thosevery valuesof socialjustice and democracythat the social democrats have traditionally soughtto pursue. PARTY AND PROLETARIAT

The reformist critique of revolutionaryorthodoxy retainedan important truth: EduardBernsteincalled upon social democracyto bring its revolutionary theoryin line with its reformistpracticeand appearaswhat it actually was. The situation was always very different with respectto the communistmovementprior to the collapseof the SovietUnion. Its parties always consideredthemselvesproletarianvanguardsand the Soviet Union as the homelandof the revolution. Communismgainedits rationaleas the revolutionaryalternativeto social democraticreformism. It can even be arguedthat when social democracywas becomingever more tepid, certain ex-communistpartiestried to presentthemselvesas a radical alternativeby embracingits traditional program and ethos. Such a coursemade communismappealingto the more militant sectorsof the working class.Nevertheless,if this tactic lacked any unique strategicpurposeand revealsthe bankruptcyof the original theory, the idea that the communistpartiesof old were actuallyfollowing a revolutionarycourseis even more illusory. Building on the tradition of Lenin and the RussianRevolution, the statesof "actually existing socialism" viewed their regimesas dictatorships of the proletariatand transitionsto a new society.The socialist ideal was trumpetedalong with the theory of inevitable capitalist collapse.The Marxism they employedwas crude, but it retainedpractical benefits. The proletarianmassesremainedon the side of history, and the vanguard party, as their representative,maintainedits "privilege" in interpreting history. It seeminglymade little difference that Leninism was far less functional as a theory of rule than as a theory of revolutionarystruggle.

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Ignoring this difference,ignoring the way in which the radical vision was used as a form of legitimacy, helpedproducean ever evolving moral rot. "What Is to Be Done?" attemptedto confront the practical problems facing revolutionariesin Russia.Lenin recognizedthe lack of a socialist tradition, the lack of a sizabletrade union movement,and a small proletariat; undersuchconditions,in addition to the ferocity of the czaristsecret police, a "vanguardparty" of disciplinedrevolutionaryintellectualsassumed a certainhistoricaljustification.23 The function of this revolutionarygroup was to bring consciousness to the workers from outsidetheir ranks. Since the workers themselvescan only attain trade union consciousness, in Lenin'sview, the party representsthe revolutionaryconscienceof the proletariat. Though Lenin knew that the party must remain"one step,but only one step"aheadof the proletarianmasses,ultimatelya division betweenthe two occursin a mechanicalfashion.Realdiscussionof the issuesoccursonly within the party circle; "democraticcentralism" does not allow for a dialogue betweenthe party and the masses,but only for unilateral mobi24 The ability to maintain discipline, to construct lization campaigns. networksof communication,and evento organizationallygo underground is greatlyfacilitated by sucha structure.But a price is paid-andnot simply 25 in terms of the rise of bureaucraticdomination and a terror apparatus. The price is a loss ofinteractionwith the proletariatitself-acentraltheme in RosaLuxemburg'scriticisms of the Bolsheviks.26 The issueis not whether"democraticcentralism"actually functioned under Lenin's leadershipand then degenerated,or whetherLenin and Stalin are one and the same.The former did not exercisecompletecontrol in the mannerof the latter. Lenin wasoverruledby the majority of the party on manycritical questions,and,within limits, free speechtook placein the party circle. The history of the revolution testifies to the qualitativedifferencebetweenLenin's Bolsheviks and Stalin's apparatchiksduring their periodsof control.27But the real issueis that the Bolshevikideaof tutelage would preventthe massesfrom learning to exercisepower themselves. Whetherpowerwas exercisedby the Bolsheviksin a revolutionarymanner or not is immaterial if the massesare preventedfrom having a say in decidingtheir destiny. The refusal to establishany standardsof accountabilityfor the vanguardrelative to the massesnecessarilyresultedin curtailing political participation and introducing a dynamic of repression.The public realm would becomeever more circumscribedby the party.28Apathy on the part of the massescould evenbe seenas a welcomedevelopment:an implicit distrust of the massesemergesfrom Lenin's theory of the vanguardfrom the very beginning.Thus, whateverthe justifications for Lenin's innovation in terms of Russiansocial conditions, the mistrust that the massstrike of 1905 initially provokedin him foreshadowedthe position that he took when the choice had to be madebetweenthe party and the sovietsduring the civil war.

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In abolishingthe power of the soviets,and simultaneouslybanning othersocialistparties,Lenin establisheda dual precedent.On the onehand, he createdthe identity betweenthe state and the party that was later to resultin the identification of the statewith the partyleader.29On the other hand, the party becamethe sole "revolutionary" organ of a hypostatized proletariat.From this perspective,any spontaneouspolitical action on the part of the working classcould be dismissedas "left-wing adventurism"or as "objectively counterrevolutionary"at the party's pleasure.The communist responseto the French and Spanisheventsof 1936, to the postwar uprisings in Italy, and to the strike movementof 1968 testifies to the inherentconservatismof this view. As the communistparty identified itself with the Russianstate,it viewed the CommunistInternationalas an instrumentof Russianforeign policy.30 If the communistrevolution is embodiedin a particular state, after all, internationalcommunistsupportfor the policies undertakenby this state is the only way to support the revolution. Proletarianinternationalism consequentlyturned into its opposite:supportfor a particular nation-state.Any interestsperceivedby the ruling clique in the Soviet Union as detrimentalto its own were thereforeseenas threateningthe foundationsof socialism;thus "proletarianinternationalism"was invoked to justify the Soviet invasionsof Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 and condemnany criticism as "objectively" supportiveof the imperialist enemy. More was involved than the metaphysicalsubstitutionof the party for the working classas the agentof history. Marxism alwaysinsistedupon the needfor a party in order to organizethe revolution and a statein order to bring the "transition" from socialismto communism.But this only begsthe question:what kind of party and what kind of state?In contrastto the social democrats,the communistsabolishedthe "bourgeois" model of pluralistic democracyboth in the party and the state.The point was not to elicit the articulation of new interestsbut to repressany particularinterest deemedthreateningby the party. Transcendingthe politics of bourgeois democracysubsequentlybecamethe rationale behind the communist "dictatorship of the proletariat."31This was perversely,in turn, seenas providing the groundworkfor the new societyin which, accordingto Marx, "the free developmentof eachwould serve as the condition for the free developmentof all." Marxist teleologywas understoodas guaranteeingthis development even though means,ever more surely, becamedivorced from ends.What resulted,of course,was the arbitrary exerciseof power by a bureaucratic party apparatusover the classesit claimed to represent.In spite of the corruption,the existenceof a semilegalblack market,the return to devices of competition,the privileges given to bureaucrats,and all the inequities, the nationalwelfaresystemconstructedby the communistswasfar-reaching in its practical effects.All the more is the pity that its accomplishments

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shouldnow be forgotten. Given the terror unleashedon the populaceand the ongoingpolitical repression,however,perhapssucha developmentonly makessense.Changingthe perceptionof socialismindeedremainsamong the most importantgoalsof the left and its partisans. DEMOCRACY ON THE LEFT

Communismwas not alone in decimatinga generation.The larger historical questionis whetherit unleashedthe hitherto repressedforces and valuesof an incipient new order.The answeris simple: communismhas virtually destroyed the emancipatory perception of socialism and bequeatheda legacythat the nonauthoritarianleft still seeksto surmount. Internationally,through the rigidity of its dogma,its continuousrefusal to perceivethe natureof fascist threats,and its refusal to exploit potentially revolutionarysituations,the Cominternrelinquishedits revolutionaryrole long before its demise.Domestically,the record is equally bleak. The "heroic years"of the revolution from 1917 to 1921 may havebeenmarkedby experimentation,attemptsto overcometraditional mores and culture as well as old prejudices.Nevertheless,for the contemporarypublic, its historicallegacyis unambiguous:it is now associatedwith repression-pureand simple. As for social democracy,it has beena mainstayof republicanismand policies associatedwith the pursuit of economicjustice.It has changedthe standingof workersin the communityand introducedthe welfare state.In the process,however,it has separatedthe concernsof its party from the class that still servesas its massbase.Its lack of concernwith issuesof "alienation" and the prejudicesassociatedwith the bourgeoisversion of everydaylife, its technocraticstyle, and its establishmentarian rhetoric fuel its use of what might be termedan ideology of compromise:the willingnessto abandonboth principle and interestsif the surrenderservesthe immediateinterestsof the party apparatusin its electoralcampaigns.The liquidation not merelyof the socialist"goal" but its basiccommitmentshas graduallyliquidated the ability of less moderatesocialiststo contestthe dynamicassociatedwith this ideologyof compromise.Socialdemocracyis losing its senseof identity, its appealto the young, no lessthan its ability to generatenewideas.Little remainsof what was oncea movementidentified with the protestagainstinjustice. Conceivingof socialismin termsof centralizedplanning, nationalizing property,marketreforms,or a party apparatuspitted over and againstthe populaceinvolved a perversionfrom the beginning.Marx knew that the crucial point in differentiatingsocialismfrom capitalismlies not in what is producedbut ratherhow it is produced.The contextwithin which production takesplacenecessarilyaffectsproductionitself; this was recognizedby the more radicalelementsamongstudentsandworkersin their attemptsto

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introduce autogestion,or workers' control, during the great strike wave of 1968. Socialism requires a "third way" that looks back to the Paris Commune,the soviets,the workers' councils, and the thinkers associated with the ideasconcerningthe "self-administration"of the proletariat. If socialismis somethingmore than a word, or a slogan,then it must makefreedommorevisible, more expansive,and more attractive.Thereare always tracesof new tendencieswithin existing movementsthat represent the attemptto refashionthe old promise.At this time, when radicalsstand at the margins,it is not the dogmaticassertionof one interestor party line over another,but rather the willingness to foster thesenew tendencieswhereverthey arise-thatalone can invigorate the socialistproject.

2 PERSISTENT MEMORIES

JewishActivists and the GermanRevolutionof 1919

T

HE YEAR 1919 is extraordinaryin Germanhistory. It brought the democraticrevolution of 1918 abruptly to a closeand openedthe door for what in 1933 would becomethe Nazi seizureof power.Paranoiagripped Germanyin 1919.Inspiredboth by the bitter reality of defeaton the battlefield and the radical specterof bolshevism,it produceda subtleshift in the commonunderstandingof anti-Semitismandthe fearsmotivatingthe antiSemite.The year saw the preoccupationof the right-wing presswith the "Jewification" (Verjudung) of Germansocietymakeway for the vision of a "Jewish-Bolshevik" conspiracy."l The Protocolsof the LearnedElders of Zion, forged in the aftermathof the Dreyfus Affair, had alreadybeen made popular in Russiaduring the Revolutionof 1905.2Anti-Semitesin Germanylearnedfrom the Protocols. They continuedto bemoanthe dominanceJews supposedlyheld over certain professionsincluding banking, and they still referred to Adolf Bartels, the noted nineteenth-centuryphilologist, and his list of eight hundredJewishwriters who were supposedlydisplacingGermanwriters from their culture.3 But the war and subsequentrevolutions transformed older concerns.Jewswere now considerednot merely as religious heretics or profiteers,the worst sortsof capitalists,but also traitors underminingthe Germannation in the nameof democracywhile conspiringwith the international communistrevolution againstChristiancivilization. This change in the anti-Semiticworldview madeit possibleto speakof Weimardemocracy as a "Jew republic." Was this new order not the productof defeaton the battlefield,dominatedby moneylenders,led by socialists,and willing to acceptthe provisionsof the humiliatingTreatyof Versailles?The NovemberRevolutionof 1918 had begunwith the abdicationof the kaiserand the returningtroops, disgruntledand without hope for the future, whose plight was so well The original version of this article appearedin New Politics Vol. 5, NO.2 (Winter 1995): 83-94·

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describedby Erich Maria Remarquein novelslike TheRoadBackand Three Comrades.A power vacuum arosewith the fall of the monarchy,and the GermanSocial DemocraticParty (SPD) filled it under the leadershipof the prowar"majority" faction led by Friedrich Ebert,Philipp Scheidemann, and GustavNoske. Accompanyingthe rise to power of the SPD were strikes and mass disturbancesof which the uprisinginitiatedby a group of sailorsin Kiel was the first. The aristocracyand bourgeoisiefearedfor their statusand their property.The military and bureaucracyfelt betrayedby the defeat,while peasantsand the petite bourgeoisieembracedthe legendof the "stabin the back"perpetratedbyJews,pacifists, socialists, andcommunistson the home front. The situation was perilous, and the possibility of civil war real enough.Socialdemocracyhad alwaysheld forth the promiseof a republic. But it was now in a difficult position.4 The SPD could either compromise with the antidemocraticand reactionaryclassesof the Wilhelmine monarchyand introduce a "republic without republicans"or risk civil war and possibleinvasionat the handsof the victorious allies by taking a more radicalapproach.This would involve purgingthe military andstatebureaucracy, liquidating the estatesof the reactionaryaristocracyin the East,and dealingwith an insistentminority of the proletariatseekinga genuinely "socialist" republicbasedon the spontaneously erupting"workers'councils" (Rate) or "soviets"if not the more authoritariantenetsof Bolsheviktheory. The Social Democratschosethe lessdangerousoption and turned on the left, whosemost importantproponentswishedto chartthe more radical,if somewhatinchoate,courseof action. None of this meantmuchto the far right. Its ideologicalattachmentto xenophobia,militarism, authoritarianism,and anti-Semitismcreatedthe philosophicalcontext in which Jews could appearas the root of the problem.Their inbredlack of principle andnationalroots supposedlymade it possiblefor them to dominatethe liberal bourgeoisie,social democracy, and internationalcommunismas well. The ''Jews"were thus capitalistsand "reds" at the sametime: the Jew becamea chameleoncapableof assuming any guise. Inextricably connectedwith the forces supposedlydominating the Weimar Republic, or what the Nazis termed"the system,"it was not unreasonableto believe that the "Jew republic" should have crushedthe uprisingsin which any numberof Jewishrevolutionariesplayed a highly visible role.

*** RosaLuxemburgwas clearly the predominantfigure amongthem. Born in 1871 in the city ofZamosc,Poland,to a middle-classJewishfamily, Luxem-

burg becamea revolutionarywhile still in high school. Hunted by the police, shefled to Zurich beforemakinga marriageof conveniencein order to enter Germanyand work with the jewel in the crown of international social democracy:the SPD. Various writers have emphasizedthe effect of

PERSISTENTMEMORIES

27

being a Jewor a womanhad on the identity of RosaLuxemburg.5Shewas always an opponentof bigotry and insistedon equality. Her thinking grudgingly allowed for "national cultural autonomy,"6and she saw social democracyas the naturalhomefor the oppressed.But the argumentoriginally madein her dissertation,The Industrial DevelopmentofPoland(1894), with its critique of Polish nationalismextendsby implication to all forms of particularism.Luxemburgwould consistentlyopposeany ideology capableof compromisingproletarianunity, the struggle againstimperialism, or what she consideredthe internationalisttenetsof Marxism. Her principles were well known, but her early writings were not. Luxemburg'sascentin the world of internationalsocial democracybegan with a contribution to what becameknown as the "revisionist debate"of 1898. Initiated by EduardBernsteinwith a set of articles, which were reworked into a book titled The Preconditionsof Socialism, orthodox Marxism was chargedwith ignoring the mannerin which capitalismhad stabilizedand the fact that the "inevitable" proletarianrevolution anticipatedby Marx was no longer on the agenda.Insisting that "the movement is everythingand the goal is nothing," Bernsteincalledupon socialdemocracy to surrenderits "revolutionaryphraseology"and foster a policy of compromisewith nonproletarianclassesto ensureeconomicreforms so socialismmight gradually"evolve." SocialReformor Revolution(1899) was the liveliest contribution to the debatemadeby any critic of "revisionism,"which includedthe mostfamous theoreticiansof orthodox Marxism like Karl Kautsky and Georgii Plekhanov.In this pamphlet,Luxemburgnotedhow crisis was endemicto capitalismand expressedher fears about how an unrestrictedpolitics of classcompromisemightjustifY any choiceby the partyleadership,andshift power to the tradeunions. Shealso arguedthat therewere limits to reform and that it could nevertransformthe productionprocessor eliminate the prospectof imperialism and political crisis. Without a political revolution, she argued,reforms grantedunder one set of conditions could also be retractedunder another.A simple emphasison economicreforms would thus result only in a "labor of Sisyphus."Indeed,without an articulated socialist"goal," she believedthat the SPD would increasinglysuccumbto capitalistvaluesand surrenderits senseof political purpose. Justas Luxemburgrejectedthe idea of a democraticmassparty run by expertsand basicallyconcernedwith incrementalreforms, however,her Organizational Questionsof Social Democracy opposedthe idea of a "vanguard"partybasedon blind obedienceanddominatedby revolutionary intellectuals.Lenin and Bernsteinwere,for her, flip sidesof the samecoin. In her view, both soughtto erect an "absolutedividing wall" betweenthe leadershipand the base.If socialismis to transformworkers from "dead machines"into the "free and independentdirectors"of societyas a whole, Luxemburgargued,then they must have the chanceto learn and exercise their knowledge.Consequently,it only makessensethat the radically

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democraticaspectsof the RussianRevolutionof 1905 shouldhaveinspired her finest theoreticalwork, Mass Strike, Party, and Trade Unions (1906). This pamphletplaceda new emphasison the innovative talentsof the massesin organizingsociety.It spoke about connectingeconomicwith political concerns.It also articulatedher organizationaldialectic between party and base,which would gradually build the "self-administrative" capacitiesof workers by helping them develop new representativeinstitutions and then, at a different stageof the struggle,still newer ones.This radical democraticvision stayedwith RosaLuxemburgduring World War I, which she spentin a tiny prison cell. There shewrote various responses to her critics, translatedThe History oj My Contemporaryof her beloved Korolenko, and-underthe pseudonymJunius-producedthe great antiwar pamphlet,The Crisis in the German SocialDemocracy(1916), which mercilesslycriticized the SPD for its supportof the kaiser'swar, its obsession with votes,its cowardicein the face of public opinion, and its betrayal of working-classinterests. Also written in jail wereher beautifullettersto friends andlovers.They portrayed her diverse interests,her courage,and her deep senseof humanity. Sonja Liebknecht-thewife of Luxemburg'sfellow socialist martyr Karl Liebknecht-publisheda small volume of her more intimate letters in 1922, and anotherfollowed a year later editedby Luise Kautsky. Interestinglyenough,they serveda political purpose.The publication of Luxemburg'sletterswas meantto build sympathyfor the womanwho was being castigatedboth by social democracyand a communistmovement undergoing"bolshevization" and attemptingto rid itself of what its former leaderRuth Fischercalled"the syphilitic Luxemburgbacillus." Therewas good reasonwhy this increasinglyauthoritarianmovement shouldhaveturnedon the first presidentof the GermanCommunistParty. In jail, while in ill health and with little information other than newspapers,RosaLuxemburgwrote whatwas surelyher mostpropheticandintellectually daring work. The Russian Revolution (1918) exposed the compromisesthat would ultimately underminethe Soviet experiment. Opposedto Lenin's agrarianpolicy, continuingto reject the useof slogans implying the "right of national self-determination,"her analysisis best known for insistingthat the revolution extendboth formal and substantive democracy,as well as for the justly famouswords: "Freedomonly for the supportersof the government, onlyfor the membersof oneparty-however numerousthey may be-isno freedomat all. Freedomis alwaysand exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.... Its effectiveness vanisheswhen 'freedom'becomesa specialprivilege." Paul Levi, her lawyer with whom shewas intimate toward the end of her life, entreatedLuxemburgnot to publish the piecefor fear of aiding the reaction.She reluctantlyagreed.She may not have had the strength to refuse.Alfred Doblin describedher in his lengthynovel Karl undRosa (1950) as suffering a nervousbreakdownin prison. Following her release

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in 1918, her hair had turnedwhite and she appearedeven more frail and thin. But Luxemburgextendedher supportto the Spartacusgroup that would serve as the nucleusfor the GermanCommunistParty (KPD) and advocatethe creation of "soviets" (or "workers' councils"). In spite of its legendarystature,Spartacusneverreceivedthe supportof a proletarian majority-and Rosa Luxemburg knew it. She warned against settingloose the revolution in Germanyand, after initially opposingthe idea of a nationalassembly,ultimately called for participatingin the elections of the nascentWeimar Republic.But shewas outvoted.The Spartacus Revolt broke out in 1919, and RosaLuxemburgdecidedto remain in contactwith the masses.Article after article in the bourgeoispress implicitly or explicitly called for her death, and even the socialist Vorwiirts printed the ditty: Hundredsof proletariancorpsesall in a row-proletarians! Karl, Rosa,Radekand company! All in a row-proletarians! Someclaim, or like to believe,Luxemburgmight havebeenable to counteract-ifever so briefly-the power of Lenin and the Bolshevikson the internationalleft.7In any event, she warnedthat a "military dictatorship" would soonsupplantthe WeimarRepublic.But the forcesof ordergot their wish. RosaLuxemburgand Karl Liebknechtwere brutally murderedat the handsof proto-Nazithugs employedby the socialistgovernmentof Ebert and GustavNoske,and the phony investigationinto their deathscauseda 8 What's more, the murderersof Liebknechtand "bloody Rosa, sensation. the Jewishpig" got off easy.They servedlittle jail time, and all became heroesin the Third Reich. Grimly, for a shorttime, Leo Jogichestook over the reins of Spartacus. Luxemburghad fallen in love with him during her time in Zurich, and thoughtheir affair was now over, he neverlost his affection and admiration for her. Jogiches,who was born in 1867, was always her political ally, and while their relationshipwas difficult, Luxemburgrelied upon his advice to the very end. Leo Jogicheswas a greatand honorablerevolutionary.He had spentyearsundergroundand in jail. He was not a theoristor a writer, but a man of actionwho thrived during times of upheavaland usedhis considerablefamily fortune to help financethe labor movementin Poland,Russia, and Germany.He participatedin virtually every revolutionaryuprising during the earlyyearsof the century,opposedWorld War I, andwas instrumental in founding Spartacus.He beggedLuxemburgand Liebknechtto leave the countrywhen it was clear that defeatwas certain.They rejected his advice and moved from one flat to another,without a plan or an idea aboutwhat shouldcomenext, beforetheywere caught.Ironically, however, Jogicheshimselfstayedin Berlin. With what must have beena rare smile, he apparentlysaid:"Somebodyhasto stay,at leastto write all our epitaphs."

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The deathof RosaLuxemburgleft Jogichesa brokenman. Obsessedwith bringing the murderersto justice, and preservingher papers,his own life lost all meaningin 1919.By all accounts,Leo Jogichesalmostpurposelyleft himselfopento capture,andwhile underarrest,he was shotin cold blood. Paul Levi assumedthe leadershipof the KPD after the death of LuxemburgandJogiches.9 Born on II March 1883,he had studiedjurisprudenceat the University of Berlin and the University of Grenobleand, after receivinghis degree,quickly becameoneof the leadinglawyersin the SPDj indeed,it was Levi who defendedRosaLuxemburgin her famoustrial for engagingin antimilitarist activity in the months precedingWorld War I. Opposedto the conflict from the very first, by 1916, Levi had enteredthe executivecommitteeofSpartacusandrepresentedLenin's call to transform the conflict betweenstatesinto a "classwar" at the Zimmerwald Conferencein 1917. Levi pressedthe investigationinto the deathof Luxemburgfollowing the defeatof the SpartacusRevolt. He alsoinsistedon drawinglessonsfrom the defeat.This led him into conflict with the Bolshevik leadershipin Moscowwho supportedBela Kun, the famous Hungariancommunist,in maintainingan "offensive" strategyof armeduprising. Levi now argued insteadfor a "defensive"strategy.He believedthat the communistcadres had beendevastated,the proletariatexhausted,by the defeatsof 1919 and that it was now necessaryto begin the task of rebuilding by enteringthe unions, attractingnew members,concentratingon ideologicalwork, and refusingto engagein romanticultraleftism.The debatecameto a headover the March Action of 1921. An uprising that had beencalled by Moscow againstthe pleadingsof Levi was quickly crushed.In a complicatedbackand-forth, Levi essentiallydemandedthat the Moscow leadershiptake responsibilityfor the debacle.Lenin was himselfinitially skepticalabout the revolutionaryattempt.But whenLevi leveledhis criticismspublicly, the Russianleadershowedno hesitancyin purging him from the Comintern for breachof discipline even while integratinghis policy proposalsinto Left-wingCommunism:AnInfantile Disorder. It was in the aftermathof this controversyduring 1922 that Levi releasedLuxemburg'spamphletThe RussianRevolutionfor publication. Levi tried to remainactivebeforehis deathin 1930in what might have been an attempt at suicide. He ultimately rejoined the SPD. But he remainedan outcastwithout power or influence.The Social Democrats hadlittle usefor him or memoriesof Luxemburgeitherfor that matter.An organizedanticommunistwitch-hunt had accompaniedthe birth of the Weimar Republic. It struck hard in Bavaria.This province had remained relatively free from the influence of the Ebert and Noske governmentin Berlin. Its capitalcity Munich also witnesseduprisingslike so many other cities in Germany.The most famousinvolved the reformist politician Kurt Eisner-aKantian pacifist and longtime socialistparliamentarian,a newspapereditor as well as a writer of socialist lyrics and fairy tales1o-who

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wound up leading a demonstrationof 200,000 people and then, in the aftermathof the kaiser'sabdication,headinga minority governmentthat introducednumerousprogressivereforms. Eisnerwas the first of the "five literati" who would dominatethe Munich eventsof 1918-1919.His assassination while on the way to handin his resignation,coupledwith the emergence of a short-lived Hungarian Soviet, generatedthe desire for a Bavarian Soviet. It was believedby many on the internationalleft that a soviet in Bavariawould induce the Austrians to form one of their own.ll Thus, the summarydeclarationof a BavarianSoviet on 7 April 1919 made a certain degreeof political senseeven if the material conditions for its successwere lacking. The BavarianSoviet was initially ruled by independentsocialistslike ErnstToller alongwith a sprinkling of anarchistslike GustavLandauerand Erich Miihsam in coalition with representatives of the SPD. But the independentswere organizationallyweak, and the majority socialistswere increasinglydisgracedby the actions of their comradesin Berlin. As a consequence, this regime found itself supplantedby a communistgovernment whose most visible leaderwas Eugen Levine. Communistrule, however,lastedonly two weeks.It was displacedby a new "dictatorshipof the natives" led by Toller and his friends, which lasted only a few days beforecapitulatingto the forces of right-wing reaction. The Bavarian Soviet never had a chance.It may have had strong supportfrom the working class,but it immediatelybecamethe object of intensehatredby the capitalist,the petit bourgeois,and the peasant.The new sovietwas also a perfecttargetfor the "philistines." Munich was, after all, a centerof the expressionistavant-gardebeforeWorld War 1. Perhaps for this reason,especiallyat the beginning,the BavarianSovietwas strongly influencedby representativesof the literati including, amongothers,Otto Neurath,Lion Feuchtwanger,and OskarMaria Graf. And theseintellectuals did not makethe bestpoliticians.The BavarianSovietneverproduced leaders on a par with Luxemburg, Liebknecht, or Levi. The foreign ministerof this staunchlyCatholicprovincewas,in fact, a certifiablelunatic by the name of Franz Lipp, who-in all seriousness-decided to declare war on the pope.Nevertheless,for betteror worse,the BavarianSovietwas unique in attemptingto fuse cultural with political liberation. Its guiding spirit was undoubtedlyGustavLandauer,who withdrew from active participationwhen the communiststook power. He was a pacifist andan anarchistwhosenobility of spirit andcommitmentwas notedby everyonewho knew him. Born in 1870 in Karlsruhe,Landauerenteredpolitics very young. "I was an anarchist,"he liked to say, "before I becamea socialist."And that was true enough.Landauermay havejoined the social democraticmovement,and he may haveeditedajournal called The Socialist around1900. But from the start, he had little use for the reformism of the SPD and quickly becamea leadingfigure of an ultraleft faction, known as "the young ones,"which was summarilyexpelledin 1894. Proudhonand

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Kropotkin would alwaysplayafar greaterrole in the thinking of Landauer thanMarx. His anarchistvision was directedlesstoward the institutionsof the economyand the statethan the humancondition. He becameinterestedin the "life reform" movement,and, by 1902, his work had already influenced thoseinvolved with the journal New Community,to which any numberof majorJewishintellectualslike Martin Buberwould contribute. Indeed, this also was around the time Landauerformed what would becomea lasting friendship with Erich Miihsam. Landauerwas more than a political figure or a bohemian.He was also a noted historian of literature, the author of a fine study of Shakespeare, and a novelist whoseworks brought him a wide measureof acclaim. His world was unbounded,and that was also true of his wife, Hedwig Lachmann,who translatedOscarWilde and RabindranathTagore.Landauer spokeof himselfas a GermanandaJewin essayslike TheDevelopingPerson (1913). But he deemedthe whole of his personalitymore than the sum ofits parts,just as humanitywas,for him, more than the variousnationalitiesand ethnic communitiesmaking it up. A presumptionof humangoodnessand a striving for a utopian condition of harmony,a respectfor the individual andlove of community,informedhis ethics.Thesebeliefs also playeda role in his somewhatlessnotablepolitical writings like A Call to Socialism,which envisionedeconomicequality along with a new direct form of democracy whose control by a newly educatedworking classwould make violence dispensable. Marta Feuchtwanger-the wife of the great realist novelist Lion Feuchtwanger-toldan interestingstory about Landauer.Apparently, after being arrestedfollowing the collapseof the Bavarian Soviet, he startedtalking to the soldiers escortinghim to prison about the goodness of humanitywhen suddenly,tired of walking and weary of his monologue,they summarilybeathim to death.12 He looked to the future without seeingthe present.Baron von Gagern,the officer responsible for his murder,was never punishedor even brought to trial. This story, which speaksvolumesabout the judiciary in the Weimar Republic, also provides a deep insight into the moral politics of Landauer.He always consideredhimself an educatorand spoke to the best in people. His concernwas less with institutions than the ways people treatedone another.He called for a new humanitarianconsciousnessand a new democraticworldview. And as minister of educationin the Bavarian Soviet, Landauerattemptedto introducea set of radical reforms ranging from allowing any eighteen-year-oldto becomea full-time studentat the University of Munich to setting up a "students'soviet" and abolishing examinations.His democraticand bohemianperspective,in fact, becomesabundantlyclear from his striking claim: "Every Bavarianchild at the age of ten is going to know Walt Whitman by heart.That is the cornerstoneof my educationalprogram." Rimbaudhad called upon his generationto "changelife." Erich Miih-

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sam heartily agreed.And why not? Miihsam was for Germany,according to anotherfamousanarchist,what Rimbaudwas for France.13Born in 1878, the son of aJewishpharmacistin Berlin, he was expelledfrom high school for socialist agitation. Miihsam felt himselfan "outsider" from the beginning and naturallygravitatedto the anarchistcircles of Berlin andMunich. Max Nomad describedhim as an inveteratespongerduring theseearly years.14 But in 1904, TheDesert,his first collectionof poems,was published, and, soon enough,Miihsam beganmaking his name as the author of cabaretsongs,anecdotes,and sketches.He riddled social democracywith sarcasmin poemslike the untranslatable"Die Revoluzzer," and important journals like Die Weltbiihneand Simplicissimusbeganpublishing his work. "Let us makeroom for freedom" was a line in one ofMiihsam'spoems. And that was what he soughtto do when, in 1911, he becamethe editor of Kain, which he describedas a "magazinefor humanity."It was, of course, nothing of the sort. This journal basedin Munich was sophisticatedand avant-garde.Miihsam wrote everyline, like his Viennesefriend and counterpart, Karl Kraus, the editor of The Torch. Miihsam advocatedpacifism, sexualliberation, and an apocalypticnotion of revolution. He defendedhis radicalfriends andcastigatedthe statusquo. WhenWorld War I broke out, he publisheda collection titled Deserts, Craters, and Clouds in which he madethe plea:"drink, soldiers,drink. ..." Miihsam refusedto serve in the army or register as a conscientious objector. And, for this, he was jailed. He cameout againstthe National Assemblyfollowing his releaseand soughtto found an Associationof InternationalRevolutionariesin Munich, which cameto nothing. The group'sprogramwas somewhatunclear,andorganizationalquestioFlsbored Miihsam. Never particularly concernedwith the classstruggle,in keeping with Landauer,he spoketo the "exploited" and evenattemptedto proselytize amongthe lumpenproletariat.Miihsam'svision of socialism,like that of LandauerandToller, was essentiallyaestheticand visionary. Miihsam was taken alive after the fall of the Bavarian Soviet and condemnedto fifteen years at hard labor. The sentencewas commutedto five years.He continuedhis anarchistactivities after his release,but grew more sober.His new journal, Fanal, no longer criticized social democracy as the main enemy,but the Nazis.Miihsam spokeout againstthe abusesof the Weimar judicial systemand supportedorganizationslike Red Aid, which raisedmoneyfor political prisonersand soughttheir liberation. He wrote a play, Reasonof State,about Saccoand Vanzetti, and an accountof the Bavarian Soviet titled From Eisner to Levine.·A Reckoning.His own humanisticvaluesand hopesfor the BavarianSovietare thereinmadeclear along with the stubbornnessof the communists.Even in this work, however,Miihsam could not adequatelydeal with the shortcomingsof his own political voluntarism or the institutional and social reasonsfor the failure of the Bavarianexperiment. Few were hatedwith the samedegreeof passionby the nationalist

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right, and its advocatescontinuedto vilifY Miihsam during the yearsof the Weimar Republic.This anarchistJewsomehowstuckin the craw of the far right. Henry Pachterevensuggestedthat Hitler probablyrememberedthe young bohemian,playing chessin the famous Cafe Megalomaniain Munich after the war, and makingfun of the future chancellor'sdrawings.15 In any event,the philistines had their revenge.Following the Nazi seizure of power, Miihsam was immediatelycapturedand transportedto the Oranienburgconcentrationcamp,wherehe died in 1934 after being slowly and almostsystematicallybeatento death. Miihsam was one of the best-lovedfigures of the BavarianSoviet,and thereare enoughreportsaboutworkersand soldiersshoutinghis nameand even carrying him on their shoulders.He was a satirist, an ironist, and somethingof a clown. He never showedfavoritism toward any party and actedresponsiblyas a leading politician of the BavarianSoviet. Miihsam soughtunity, provedwilling to compromisewith the communists,andeven on one or two occasions.All of this he did appearedas their spokesperson without surrenderinghis principlesor his variousutopianideasfor reform. He knewwho he was andhis "identity" was nevera problemfor him. Thus, Miihsam could write: I am a Jewand will remaina Jew so long as I live. I neverdeniedmy Judaismand never even walked out of the religious community (becauseI would still remain a Jew and I am completelyindifferent underwhich rubric I am enteredin the state'sregister).I considerit neitheran advantagenor a disadvantageto be aJew;it simply belongs to my being like my red beard,my weight, or my inclinations.16

It wasn't much different for ErnstToller. The most famous and perhaps prototypicalleaderof the BavarianSoviet was born in Posenin 1893, and his autobiography-IWasa German-speaks elegantlyof anti-Semitismin Germany.But still hejoined the military in a moodof "emotionaldelirium" to fight in World War I. Given his releasein 1916,in the wake of a nervous breakdown,he soon becamea staunchpacifist and ultimately a socialist. After studying at the universitiesof Munich and Heidelberg,where he came to know Max Weber and various other distinguishedacademics, Toller wrote his deeplyautobiographicalplay Transformation(1917).Dream sequences,abstractfigures, and various other expressionisttechniquesare employedin this dramawhosemain characterexperiencesany numberof "transformations,"eachof which liberateshim from a prior ideologicalprejudice, until finally he finds "redemption" (Erl6sung) in a utopian vision of "revolution." Basedon a fundamental"faith in humanity," concernedless with workersthan an imageof the oppressed,this "revolution" would necessarily prove nonviolent and bring about a changein the very "essence"of "man" beyondall externalities.Toller was-like Eisner-amemberof the IndependentSocial DemocraticParty (USPD), which had split from the

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SPD in 1916 over the latter's prowar policy. The USPD, small and poorly organizedin Munich, had aligneditselfwith the councilistmovement,and Toller quickly becamea leading figure in the BavarianSoviet. His reputedly remarkableoratoricalabilities surelydidn't hurt; indeed,it was saidthat "he carriedthe peopleby the force of his own convictions... They wanted a missionin life; Toller suppliedthem with one."!? The creationof the BavarianSovietwas accompaniedby the planting of freedomtrees,the singingofJacobinsongs,anda greatdealof libertarian rhetoric. The contemporaryGermanwriter TankredDorst, in fact, has arguedthat Toller interpretedthe eventsof 1919 in terms of the expressionist apocalypsehis works depicted.Whetherthat is true or not remains an open question.But it is surely true that Toller knew nothing about economicsand not much more about institutions. His grasp of political priorities was also somewhatsuspect.While Bavariawas experiencinga food shortage,in the aftermathof the allied blockade,Toller's first speech to the soviet concernedthe new forms of architecture,painting, and drama by which humanitymight expressitself more fully. Administrativeservices collapsed,and the organizationof revolutionarysoldierswas a shambles; indeed, with a mixture of affection and sarcasm,Max Weber once remarked:"God in his fury has turnedToller into a politician." But, in fact, Toller remainsa greatsymbol for socialistlibertarians.He was brave and humane.He fought courageouslywith the defendersof the BavarianSoviet againstthe reactionaryforces and savedmany hostages from the revengesoughtby various communistleaderslike Rudolf Engelhofer. Toller was capturedwith the downfall of the Bavarian Sovietand spentfive years in prison, part of the time-ironically-in a cell not far from the one occupiedby Adolf Hitler. Therehe wrote his beautifulcollection of poems,The Swallow'sBook,which broughthim greatpopularity,and attemptedto unifY respectfor the individual with solidarity in works like Man and the Masses(1924) and Broken-Brow,which concernsan impotent war invalid abandonedby society. The pathos in the work of Toller increasedalong with his despondency.And yet, following his release,he joined the GermanLeaguefor Human Rights and participatedin various pacifist organizations.Even while writing for prestigiousjournalslike Die Weltbuhne,which publishedhis prison writings, and using an innovative expressioniststyle, he always consideredhimself a "people'spoet" (Volksdichter). He was another,like Miihsam, who castigatedthe criminal justice systemfor its right-wing bias and Hooray! We'reAlive! remainsamongthe most trenchantcriticisms of the materialisticand chauvinisticundersideof the Weimar Republic. Toller was also, along with Miihsam, one of the very few intellectuals who immediatelyrealizedthe dangerposedby the Nazis and what differentiatedthem from other"bourgeois"and even"reactionary" parties.Toller fled Germanywhen they cameto power. He went from Switzerlandto France,England,and finally to the United States.But he hatedexile. He

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nevermadeit in Hollywood, andwhile feeling his powersdiminishing, he despairedas Hitler won victory aftervictory. Toller, the pacifist and humanitarian, committedsuicide in New York in 1939. He never saw the end of the regime he so despised. If Toller died too early, however,his communistcompetitorfor power in the Bavarian Soviet-EugenLevine-diedjust in time. He would certainlyhaveperished,perhapsevenmorecruelly, underStalin. Levine was not quite the saint his wife, Rosa Levine-Meyer,portrayedin her biography.But he incarnatedthe bestof the Bolshevikspirit. He wasunyielding anddogmatic,but an honestintellectualandtotally committedto the most radical utopian ideals of internationalrevolution. Born on 10 May 1883 in St. Petersburginto a wealthyJewishfamily, he was broughtup in Germany where as a youth he actuallyfought a duel againstsomeonewho had made an anti-Semiticremark.18 He returnedto Russiain 1904 where he gained revolutionaryexperienceand participatedin the Revolution of 1905 before being arrestedand severelybeaten.After bribery securedhis release,he moved back to Germany.There Levine worked as a propagandistfor the SPD and naturallygravitatedto the circle aroundRosaLuxemburgbefore joining Spartacus. Levine soon enoughfound himselfin disagreementwith his mentor. Enthralledby the RussianRevolutionof 1917,in contrastto Luxemburg,he took a genuinelyultraleft stance.He was critical of the alliance between Spartacusand the USPD. He also vigorously opposedparticipatingin the National Assemblyand ultimately embracedLenin's new Communist International.Believing the masseswould follow an inspiredvanguard,in keepingwith the Bolshevikexampleof 1917,he andhis closecomrade,Max Levien, were instrumentalin causingthe defeatof the more moderate proposalsof Luxemburgand the leadershipof Spartacus,therebypaving the way for what would take placein Berlin. But, for all that, Levine acquittedhimselfvaliantly during the uprising. The police huntedfor him and at the urging of Paul Levi, the new leader of the GermanCommunistParty,Levine was sentto Munich wherehe was to put the small and disorganizedparty cell into order. Levine'sfirst article warnedworkersnot to engagein any"precipitous"actions,andhe opposed forming a Bavarian soviet. When the soviet was proclaimedanyway, appalledby its circuslike character,Levine was successfulin calling upon the KPD to remainin opposition.He still fearedworking with representatives of the SPD and, perhapsmore fully than any other of its prominent figures, recognizedthe lack of support-especiallyamongthe peasantsfor the soviet. The questionis why Levine shouldhavecalleduponthe communiststo reversetheir position. He knew the soviet was doomed.Perhapshis new stance derivedfrom a desire to take power and use the occasionto make propagandaand identify the communistswith the soviet. His policy surely did not find its sourcein Moscow; indeed, no Bolshevik emissarieswere

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active in Munich. Most likely, following Rosa Luxemburg, Levine had decidedto preservethe sovietideal and"staywith the masses"in the face of the reaction. Levine was, interestinglyenough,no less utopianthan his opponents. His communistsmay have introducedcensorship,but they too soughtto revamp the schools,and proclaimedthe famous Frauenkirchea "revolutionary temple."All this was a desperateattemptto mimic what has been describedas the "heroic period" of war communismin the Soviet Union. Communistworkers,however,soon enoughturned againstthe disastrous policy of Levine, and his heritageis tainted by the uselessshootingof hostagesand arbitrary confiscationscarried out by membersof his party. For all that, however,Levine remainedtrue to his beliefs. He participated in the streetfighting, and his defiant deathbeforea firing squadonly testified to his courage.Indeed,with his cry of "Long Live the World Revolution!" the tragiccomedyof the BavarianSoviet cameto a close along with the most radical hopesof 1919.

*** Judaismnever figured prominentlyin the writings or the politics of these activists. All were cosmopolitansand, essentially,assimilationist.But, in keepingwith the Old Testament,they consideredthemselvesprophetsof justice, equality, and democracy.Theywere romanticswithout much sense of the institutions necessaryto sustainthesevalues.Each condemnedthe decadenceof the statusquo and genuinelyidentified with thosewhom, in biblical language,Ernst Bloch liked to call "the lowly and the insulted." Each prized the momentof action and soughtto provide the masseswith a new senseof their own possibilities. Each also exhibited exceptional braveryand remainedtrue to his or her convictions.Each after his or her fashion challengedan alienationwhosesourceis the story of Adam and Eve. Eachdreamedof paradise. TheseJewishrevolutionariesspannedthe spectrumof radicalism,and seeminglylittle united them.Theywere a motley crew. Miihsam andToller were leading figures of the expressionistavant-garde.But the first was an anarchistand the seconda left-wing socialist. It was the samewith Landauerand Eisner,thoughboth were influencedby Kant. Levine was a Bolshevik. As for Luxemburg,Jogiches,and Levi, they had little use for moralism or bohemiansand even less for authoritarians.Judaismdoesn't help much in explaining their particular form of revolutionarycommitment.Viewing the matterin this light, however,is perhapsoverly academic. The fascistsand anti-Semitescertainly didn't feel that way. Judaismhas a certain importancewhen consideringthe uprisings of 1919, but less with respectto its impacton the revolutionariesthemselvesthan on the activists of the counterrevolution.Theyusedthe visibility of theseJewsto justify the idea of a "Jewish-Bolshevik"conspiracyintent on destroyingGermanyand the Aryan race.

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Anti-Semitism doesn'tdisappearsimply becauseJews don't define themselvesas such;1919 is a casein point. The utopianvaluesembracedby theseJewish revolutionaries,in fact, only heightenedthe fervor and brutality of thosemostintent on producingits opposite.And, in a way, they succeeded.All of theseremarkableindividuals were mostly forgotten long before the collapseof the Soviet Union in 1989 and the emergenceof a right-wing cultural climate in its aftermath.The alternativethey offered to both the impoverishedcultural landscapeof capitalismand what increasingly becamea gray form of communismis now almosta memory.But this is preciselywhat makesit importantto preservea senseof their vision and their sacrifice, and contestthe dark truth behind the beautiful words of Erich Miihsam: Who will rememberme when I am dead? The sadday has snatchedmy youth. Eveningcametoo soon.Rain fell. Happinesspassedme by; I remaineda stranger. My poor hearthasits fill of suffering. Sooncomesthe night which has no stars.

3 IN THE SHADOW OF THE RESISTANCE

Albert Camusand the Paris Intellectuals

W

II transformeda generationof intellectuals.This was particularly the casewith Albert Camus.The young essayistand novelistdiscovereda new senseof solidarityduring this time in which each, employinga phrasefrom his play Stateof Siege,"was in the sameboat."The defeatof Francecreateda short-livedunity betweenpreviouslyconflicting political tendenciesranging from conservativeslike GeneralCharlesde Gaulle to communistsas well as anarchistslike PascalPia. Even manywho were nonpolitical found themselvesdrawn into some form of opposition againstHitler and his puppetrulers of Vichy. Intense,if often short-lived, friendshipswere forged in the cafes,undergroundcultural events,and countlessmeetings.The years of defeatwere the ones in which Camus cameto know Andre Gide, Andre Malraux, andArthur Koestler,andgrew closewith figures like Jean-Paul Sartreand Simonede Beauvoir.It was the samewith the great love of Camus'life, the wonderful actressMaria Casares,now best rememberedfor her minor part in the film Children of Paradise.Most of thesefriendshipswould sour after the war. Nevertheless, the bitternessof defeatgenerateda new senseof community and a hope for the postwarrenewalof Francefrom which the legendof the Resistance was born. Camusjoined the Resistancelate. But he quickly madean exceptional contributionboth as an activist andas the editor of Combat.He movedback to Pariswhere he lived first in a hotel and then in the flat of Andre Gide. He performedundergroundwork and saw enough friends like Rene Leynaud,chief of the Paris sector,fall into the handsof the Gestapoand wind up dead or in concentrationcamps.All of Paris spoke about his editorials,however,and an aura surroundedhim at the time of the liberation. The now famousLettersto a GermanFriend, which were dedicatedto Leynaud,only enhancedhis image. ORLD WAR

The original versionof this article appearedin New Politics 5, no. 4 (winter 1996): 1)0-166.

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Theseletterswerewritten as propagandapieces,and the argumentsare emotionalratherthan reasoned.Sayingthat Francewould emergefrom the conflict with "clean hands"or that the Resistancekilled without "hating," for example,only madesensein the mostpolemicalterms.But, for all that, they evoke stark imagesand a senseof how a defeatedpopulationwas forced to live "with humiliations and silences,with prison sentences,with executionsat dawn, with desertionsand separations,with daily pangsof hunger,with emaciatedchildren, and, above all, with humiliation of our humandignity."! The Lettersto a GermanFriend do not simply justify taking up arms againstthe Nazis. They emphasizethe moral cost to the victim of using violenceto counterviolence.Tracesof his former pacifismremainas Camus wonders"if we had the right to kill men, if we were allowed to add to the frightful misery of this world." Questionsof this sort, of course,are answeredin the affirmative. But within the frameworkof propaganda,these letters meditateon the motivationsfor engagementand reflect the change a generationunderwent.They admit the illusions of a time seeminglylong pastas Camusnoteshow: We had to make a long detour, and we are far behind.It is a detour that regardfor truth imposeson intelligence,that regardfor friendjustice and ship imposeson the heart.It is a detourthat safeguarded put truth on the side of those who questionedthemselves.And without a doubt,we paid very dearlyfor it. 2 Two traditions are shownin conflict: fascismand humanism,irrationalism and enlightenment,force and what the Frenchcall civilisation.The ideological reasonsfor the war becomeclearin theselettersalongwith whatwas culturally at stake.Theyprovide a certainself-understanding for what drove young men and women into the Resistance.Indeed,they make plain the preoccupationwith solidarity and consciencefor which Camuswould becomeknown.

*** Camuswas never a great political realist. He had joined the communist movementas a young man just prior to its endorsementof the antifascist PopularFront, which extendedfrom 1936 to 1938,3 despitehis supportfor the "appeasement"policy advocatedby Neville Chamberlain.Even following the Germanattackon Poland,Camusbelievedthe allies should seekto negotiatewith the Nazis.4 He neverreally graspedthe dynamicsof totalitarianismand,whateverhis experiences as a pooryouth in Algiers,Sof imperialismeither.World War II was initially seenby him as essentiallya productof humanerror and moral blindness.6 But, for all that, The Plaguebecameone of the most importantnovels of the age.It soon sold over one hundredthousandcopies.The novel was

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quickly translatedinto many languages,and turned Camusinto an internationalcelebrity. Ironically, however,it was written in the MassifCentral where there was no fighting by a man who had never seentanks rolling. Camusfelt the war as an absence,which is preciselywhy he dealsneither with battlesnor the singularactsof wartime heroism,but the everydaylife of a populaceundersiege.But, from the very first, everyoneunderstoodits purpose.The Plaguecrystallizedthe experienceof a generationsick of war, guilty aboutits early defeat,and suspiciousaboutthe future. Camuswould never again portray as many multidimensionalcharacters with diversemotivationsfor action. Written in five parts,reminiscent of the structureusedin classicaltragedy,this novel evidencesa complex form of narrationas well as a subtlemixture of direct and indirect forms of speech.Its soberprose,its careful construction,its deliberateunderstatement, all contribute to its enduringsuccess.The Plague marks a shift of focus from the isolatedindividual of The Strangerand TheMyth ofSisyphus to a situation calling for solidarity with others.The novel, accordingto Camus,"representsthe transitionfrom an attitude of solitary revolt to the recognitionof a communitywhosestrugglesmust be shared.If there is an evolutionfrom The Stranger,to ThePlagueit is in the directionof solidarity and participation."7 This novel is the work in which Camusmost clearlypulls togetherthe various themesand imageson which his careeris built. It most clearly evidenceshis critique of Christianity, his refusalto love a god who lets the innocentdie, and who demandsunconditionalacceptanceof the human condition. It exhibits his humanismand providesperhapsthe bestunderstandingof his political worldview. The novel reflects the values of the PopularFront and, like so many other works from the 1930S and 1940s, there is no protagonist.There are no grandwords and no grand gestures. There is, in short, "no questionof heroismin all of this. It's a matter of commondecency.That's an idea which may make somepeoplesmile, but the only meansof fighting the plagueis-commondecency."8 The Plagueportraysthe tensionbetweenprivate and public commitments. Each characterhas his own worldview. Each makeschoicesand, with the exceptionof a collaboratornamedCottard,assumesresponsibility for them. Each has,for this reason,a different versionof the eventsinitiated by the plague.According to Camus,however,a "chronicle" is being presentedthat beginswith rats dying in the town of Oran and leaving the plagueas their legacy.Peoplestartbecomingincurablyill and the authorities, after first attemptingto downplaythesedevelopments,cling to habit andrefuseto acceptthe evidenceof an epidemic.Thus,ultimately,theyfind themselveswithout any plan for dealingwith the emergency. This is the point at which T arrou unites a motley group of individuals with very different worldviews into a "sanitationcorps"committedto fight the plague.Rieux is a doctorwho can no longerheal; Grandis a clerk, who wishesto write a novel but cannotget beyondthe first sentence;Rambert

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is a journalisttorn betweenlove for his mistress,whom he wishesto join in anothercity, and the growing senseof solidarity with the inhabitantsof Oran; Panelouxis a priestwho, from the pulpit, calls the plaguea punishment from God and then witnessesthe death of an innocentchild; and finally thereis Tarrou, a humanistand opponentof the deathpenalty,who keepsa diary of the plague. Which of the charactersis most"like" the authoris an irrelevantquestion. Rieux illustratesthe militant who, like Camus,doesn'tsubscribeto any particularpolitical creedand quietly engagesin the unheraldedday-to-day battle with tyranny. Tarrou, like Camus,opposescapital punishmentand JosephGrand,who seeksinner peacethrough his morale de comprehension. could nevercompletehis perfectwork of art and reflectsthe writer's block often experiencedby Camushimself, showshis dignity by engagingin the humbletaskof keepingcarefulstatisticsof the plague.Rambertis separated from his lover, just as Camuswas separatedfrom his wife by the outbreak of war, and in staying to fight the plague makesperhapsthe ultimate personalsacrificein the nameof solidarity.9 For all his Catholicdogmatism, which Camusexperiencedwhile convalescingat a Dominican monastery in 1943, FatherPanelouxreflects the courageof his convictions.There is subsequentlysomethingin eachof thesecharacterswith which Camus identifies, and in the solidarity they exhibit as well as the sacrificesthey make,he finds "more things in men toadmire than to despise." The novel offers no certainty, however,that the struggle againstthe epidemicwas of any use. Resistancedoes not defeatthe plague,but only bearswitnessagainstit. The plagueseemsto subsideon its own and Rieux, who ultimately emergesas the narratorof the novel, ruefully acknowledges to himself"whatthosejubilant crowdsdid not know but could havelearned from books: that the plaguebacillus never dies or disappearsfor good; ... and that perhapsthe day would comewhen, for the baneand enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and sendthem forth to die in a happycity."lO

*** Roland Barthescalled The Plague a "refusal of history." And this is obviously the startingpoint for any criticism. Numerouscritics havenotedhow the real nature of fascism is ignored and the battle againstan inhuman plagueoversimplifies the matter of commitment.There is no reasonfor anyoneto identifY with a disease,andviolencecarriedout againsta human enemyis very different from the tactics undertakenin fighting the plague. Sartrewas correct, in this regard,when he noted that the conflicts of interestinherentwithin a concrete"situation" disappear. But in a way, this critique is externalto the novel. It basicallyattacks Camusfor not havingwritten the "realist" or "naturalist"work thesecritics wantedto read. ThePlaguedoesnot pretendto describethe horrorsof totalitarianismin systematicfashion,nor is there a reasonwhy it should.Mate-

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rial and instrumentalconstraintson action are also less the province of a symbolic tale than the moral conflicts experiencedby individuals. Even worse,however,the criticism ofBarthesandotherslike Sartrealso obscures what is sociologicallyimportant aboutthe work. It ignores the mannerin which the novel actuallyoffers a self-understanding of the Resistance. Participantsin the Resistancesaw themselves,after all, as engagedin the battle againstabsoluteevil; indeed,men and women of very different creedsunited in a commonproject. Camusglorifies them, and perhaps,in this sense,The Plaguehelpedfoster what would becomethe "myth" of the Resistance.But there is also an elementof truth in this idealizedimage. The Manichaeanframeworkof good and evil employedby Camus,in fact, reflects the moral simplicity of choosingbetweenfascism and antifascism. Philosophicalexcusesfor collaboratingwith the Nazis, in this vein, fall apart.Also, in contrastto the carefullycultivatedpostwarimageof an overwhelmingly popularantifascism,it is importantto note how Camusdepicts the majority of the populaceas apatheticandfalling backinto a life of habit as the plagueruns its course.Indeed,its Christian pessimismconcerning the ineradicablecharacterof the plagueundercutsthe revolutionaryoptimism in which Francefound itself enmeshedfollowing the liberation. Diseaseas the symbol of evil and as a basic elementof the human condition has a long history. It extendsfrom the Bible to the drawingsof Albrecht Durer to the writings of Daniel Defoe to the avant-garde dramatic theory of Antonin Artaud. Symbolically identifying totalitarianismwith a plague,of course,obscuresthe characterof a particularpolitical system.Arguably, in fact, it evenrelativizesNazismin relation to other forms of tyranny. Naturalizingtotalitarianism,however,is a double-edged sword.There is nothing xenophobicabout the book, and this was important during a time in which anti-Germansentimentwas particularlystrong. Evil has no name, no race, no sex, and no nationality. Camusmay have consideredit part of the humancondition,but he also knew that it cantake many forms. His intention was clear: he would refuseto identify anyone form of evil "in order better to strike at them all ... The Plaguecan apply to any resistanceagainsttyranny."ll No otherwork of Camusor of the periodso fusesa symbolicrendering of the humanconditionwith the self-understanding of a particularhistorical experience.The Plaguereflects the valuesembodiedin a set of articles written for Combatin 1946,"Neither Victims nor Executioners."Theseare the piecesin which Camusrejects not merely fascism,but Stalinismwith its perversebeliefthat a utopianfuture justifies the useof systematicmurder in the present.Such utopianismand lack of respectfor the individual are preciselywhat this novel contests.The infectious characterof the disease raisesthe prospectof contamination,and doctorsare warnedabouttaking the necessaryprecautionsin treating the victims lest they themselves becomecarriers.Thus,in the words ofTarrou,what Camuswould consider the basicissueof the agebecomesdefined:

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As time went on I merely learnedthat even thosewho were better than the rest could not keep themselvesnowadaysfrom killing or letting otherskill, becausesuchis the logic by which theylive; andthat we can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death 2 to somebody.1 This novel is simultaneouslyan evocationof the PopularFront and a definitive breakwith the communistparty. There is not a single communist among the prominentfigures in the novel. Rieux, Tarrou, Grand, and Rambertare all liberal humanists;Panelouxis a Catholic. Communists played a prominentrole in the French Resistanceand were part of the commonfight againstfascism.The decisionon the part of Camusto omit them was surelypurposeful.It was basedon what had becomea definitive ethical position: "There is no objection to the totalitarian attitude other than the religious or moral objection."13 Solidaritywould havemeaningonly insofaras respectfor the individual was preserved.Camushad becomesick of his age. He was appalledat the thoughtof untold millions beingcynically sacrificedfor the utopiandreams of dictatorial regimes.His artistic identification with Tarrou, who wished neverto increasethe suffering of anyone,now beganto take philosophical shape.The idea of a revolutionarytransformationwould surrenderbefore a concernwith "achievinga rule of conductin secularlife."14 Rebelling againstsuffering while seekingto "correct existence"would now define his philosophy.Suchwas the messageof The Plaguewhen it appearedin 1947.

*** With an idealizednotion of antifascistsolidarity as its theme,however,The Plaguewas alreadyconsignedto an agegoneby evenbeforeits publication. Three interconnectedissuesled to the dissolution of the Resistance following the defeatof its fascist enemy:the problemof the collaborators, the CommunistParty, and the nationalliberation movementin Algeria. Eachwould have a profoundimpact on the careerof Albert Camus. Writing in Combatabout the collaborators,at first, he advocateda policy of "justice without mercy" as the preludeto a socialisttransformation of Frenchsociety.As the purgesproceededunderthe jurisdiction of "popular tribunals,"however,their arbitrarycharacterbecameever more pronounced.Camusgrew increasinglydisgustedand ultimately agreed in public with the earlier criticisms of his radical position raisedby the great Catholic novelist and Nobel Prize winner, Francois Mauriac.1sCamuslearnedhis lesson.He becameever more concerned with the rule oflaw, the deathpenalty,and the sacrificeof individual lives for political purposes. Camuswas, of course,uninterestedin "excusing" conservativesand

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remnantsof the old right now gatheredaround Generalde Gaulle. He annoyedthem by calling for an internationalboycott of Spain,which was still under the fascist yoke of GeneralissimoFranco, and becominga cofounderin I948 of the Groupede Liaison Internationale,which sought to give both moral and financial aid to political refugeesregardlessof ideological orientation.His oppositionto the deathpenaltyand commitment to the politically persecuted,however,also put him directly at oddswith the communistswho were busily engagedin bloody purgesthroughoutEastern Europeas well as, once again,in Russiaitself. UnderstandingpostwarEurope is possibleonly by recognizingthe prestigeenjoyedby the Soviet Union, particularly in many of the Western countriespreviouslycontrolled by the Nazis.The USSRwas seen,rightly or wrongly, as having supportedthe Spanishloyalists and opposedthe "appeasement" of Hitler. The pactbetweenStalin andthe Germandictator, which unleashedWorld War II and resultedin the dismembermentof Polandin I939, was perceivedas a defensiveactioncausedby the vacillation of the democracies.The Soviet Union gainedmuch sympathyfor its enormous lossesduring the war; its citizens symbolizedantifascistheroism during the great Battle of Stalingradin I943. Communistsalso played a valiant role in the Europeanresistancemovements,and their organizations commandedthe loyalty of a significant numberof workersin France,Italy, andelsewherein the aftermathof World War II. The SovietUnion was also consideredthe naturalally of all nationalliberation and the primary opponent of Westernimperialism.The future of communismappearedbright, and the inevitability of revolution seemedassured. Exiles and victims obviously knew about the murderouspurgesof opponents,the concentrationcamps,the censorship,the constantlying, the egregiouspolicies of the Stalinist regime.There was a senseamong many that the communistutopia had becomeever more divorced from the bureaucraticpolice state intent on economicmodernizationin the present.But the full horror of the "dictatorshipof the proletariat,"and its sacrificeof millions for the dreamsof an egalitariansociety,was not fully grasped.Arthur Koestler, with whom Camusenjoyed a tempestuous friendship, vividly crystallizedthis reality for a broaderpublic in Darknessat Noon. The novel describeda former Bolshevikofficial's comingto termswith his beliefs and previousactionson behalfof the partywhile facing deathin a Stalinist prison. It createda sensationand was instantly condemnedby various communist intellectuals including most notably, a different acquaintanceof Camus,the important philosopherMaurice MerleauPonty. His rejoinderto Koestler,HumanismandTerror, essentiallyjustified the authoritarianbrutality of Stalinismin termsof "historical necessity"and the difficulties encounteredin the marchto a communistutopia.He viewed the individual as subordinateto the collective and intentionsas irrelevant

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to the social consequences of actions.Thus, even if the "subjective" criticisms madeby Koestlerwere true, Merleau-Pontythought it necessaryto opposethem since they "objectively" weakenedthe Soviet Union and strengthenedits Western"imperialist" adversariesin a "cold war" whose potentialfor heatingup could producenuclearcatastrophe. Camuswas caughtin the middle. He supportedneither the Western imperialist exploitation of colonies ranging from Algeria to Vietnam nor the brutal policies in EasternEurope practicedby the Soviet Union. Just after the war, in fact, Camushadwitnessedthe bloody repressionof the first Moslem uprising in Algeria againstimperialist rule, and his ensuingcritical essayswere so preciseand clear in their demandsthat he was offered a governmentposition. Camusrefused,of course,especiallysince the army and various conservativecliques in both Franceand Algeria adamantly opposedliquidating the empire. Governmentalcabinetafter cabinetwas paralyzed,and the intransigenceof the right claimedits first victim as the Socialist Party graduallyweakenedin the face of the Algerian eventsand its own inability to overcomea mountingsetof internalpolitical squabbles. Thus,while the Resistancewas fragmentinginto communistand Gaullist tendencies,Camusincreasinglyfound himselfsupportinga form of liberal socialismwhose massbasein the proletariatwas both numerically and institutionally disintegrating. Camusrefusedto make a dogmaticchoicebetweenthe two sides.His concernabout the authoritariancliques surroundingGeneralde Gaulle causedtensionsbetweenhimselfand Malraux. The communists,for their part, deploredhis unwaveringcommitmentto civil rights and republican principles. Camusessentiallysoughta Scandinavianform of democratic socialism.But this saysvery little about his own unique idea of "engagement." Camuswas increasinglyremindedin the postwarera that he had never really articulateda political theory, let alone his fundamentalcriticisms of the communistworldview and its philosophicalfoundations. While working on TheMyth ofSisyphus,which was an attemptto separate himselffrom the existentialistsby dealingwith the questionof suicide, Camusbegancollecting notes for a volume concerningthe philosophical legitimacy of murder. Thejust, a fascinatingplay about Russiananarchists engagedin plotting an assassination while questioningwhetherit is ever moral to take a life, was quite successfulwhen it openedin 1949. But he startedsystematicallyworking on the questionof murderonly in the aftermath of the Koestler affair. It proved difficult for him. He sufferedfrom writer's block. He questionedhis ability to write a treatisewith the requisite philosophical,political, and literary depth. Perhapshe even had a presentimentof what would result from its publication.This new book would throw him into a windstorm of controversy,isolate him politically, and even causethe breakupof certain close friendships. The Rebelwould becomehis first and last work of political theory.

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*** The Rebelfused the personalethic of lucidity and resistanceagainstthe inherentmeaninglessness of life, which he had elaboratedin The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus,with the notion of solidarity developedin The Plague.This work of political theory proposeda positive responseto an "absurd"existenceand a diagnosisof the "pathology"by which the agehad come to view massmurderas an acceptablepolitical option. Both aims are encompassed in the title, L'Hommerevolti, which has a double meaningin French:the rebel and the revoltedman. The Rebelis essentiallydivided into three parts, dealing respectively with revolutionarytransformation,artistic rebellion, and a political ethics basedon "Mediterraneanthinking." The logic and categories,however, follow directly from The Myth of Sisyphus.We live in an "absurd"universe defined by relativism and contingency.Just as suicide is an inadequate responseto the human condition, however,so is rebellion opposedto the notion that "everythingis possibleand nothing has any importance."16For if suicide is illegitimate, then humanlife must assumeprimary value.The killing of anotherpersonis subsequentlyalwayswrong unlessthe murderer is himselfor herselfpreparedto die as well. Hereinlies the "limit" to rebellion and the meaningbehind the belief that: "murder and suicide are the samething one must either acceptor reject them both." Rebellion,for Camus,is a productof humannature.It is the practical expressionof outragein the face of injustice by a slaveor anyoneelsewho has experiencedthe transgressionof an establishedlimit by the masterin any given social situation.Rebellionis basedon the desireto be recognized as a personwith dignity and certainbasicuniversalrights. Solidarity is, in short,implicit in the notion of rebellion.Thus,Camuscanmakehis famous claim: "1 rebel, therefore,we exist."17 Too often, however, this concernwith reciprocity is forgotten.The legitimategoal of counteringexploitation is usedto justify tactics directly at oddswith it. IS The rebelmust,usingthe phraseof Nietzsche,"transvalue values."He or she,for this reason,will contestthe prejudicesof the established order and traditional absolutesincarnatedin religion. Particularlyin Europe,however,history or "reason" have beenturned into new absolutes harboringguaranteesof a future utopia in orderto compensatefor the loss of otherworldly salvation.

Rebellion is born of the spectacleof irrationality, confronting an unjust and incomprehensiblecondition. But its blind impulse is to demandorderin the midst of chaosandunity in the very heartof the ephemeral.It criesout, it demands,it insiststhat the scandalceaseand thatwhat has,up to now, beenbuilt uponshifting sandsshouldhenceforth be foundedupon rock.19

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The "absurd" thereby becomesmirrored in the actions of those seekingto abolish it. And so, in this way, a situation occursin which the rebel can justify the murder of all those who stand in the way of constructinga just world. The end is seenasjustifying the means.Therein, for Camus,lies the "pathology"of moderntotalitarianism.Formerly"a life is paid for by a life. The reasoningis false but respectable.(A life taken is not worth a life given.) Today, murder by proxy. No one pays."20It is necessaryto set existentiallimits. Thus, rememberinga conversationwith Koestler, Camuscan write: The endjustifies the meansonly if the relative orderof importanceis reasonable-ex:I can sendSaint-Exupery [the famous aviator and authorof The Little Prince] on a fatal missionto savea regiment.But I cannotdeport millions of personsand suppressall liberty for an equivalentquantitativeresult and computefor three or four generations previouslysacrificed.21 The rebel must assumethat life has an intrinsic worth. Otherwise,he or she would not contestinjustice in the first place. Commitmentto a perfect world must thereforebecometemperedwith compassion.The genuinerebel, for this reason,continually strives to rememberwhat motivated his or her undertakingin the face of political exigenciesand the temptationof unethical action againstothers."Memory," in this way, becomesthe enemyof all totalitarianswho, in seekingto breakwith all of history, necessarilydestroyany coherentrelation betweenendsand means as they elevatea future utopia beyondthe needsof real individuals living in the present.The revolutionarydesire to transformthe "totality," in short, can only prove disastrous.This is why Camuscanwrite: "It's generalideas that hurt the most."22 Art supposedlymakesthis plain insofar as it seeksto createmeaning in a meaninglessworld. Incoherenceis deniedpreciselybecauseart stamps its own form on the real world. But Camusis, of coruse,talking about a particular type of art. True art must face the absurdwithout surrendering to it. And insofaras it doesthat, art mirrors the needfor a progressivepolitics by constantlymaking referenceto the happinessof the individual. When art ignoresthe conflicts experiencedby peoplein reality, according to Camus,it resultsin little more thanan emptyformalismwhile the preocleadsto dogmatismand monotony.Art musttake cupationwith engagement a third pathbetweenformalism and realismmuch as philsophymust reject both subjectivismand historical determinism. An ability to rememberthe concretesubjectplus a senseof"moderation," born of what Camuscalls "Mediterraneanthinking," becomecrucial. Thesequalities reject the "passionfor divinity" lurking behind all utopian experiments.They underminewhat turns revolutionariesinto tyrants: the desire to transform human nature.Thesequalities inherentlygeneratea

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beliefin discourse,a certainopen-mindedness, and a recognitionof human frailty. Mediterraneanthinking considersphysical life, happiness,and creativity as the purposesof everyprogressivepolitical action. Murder and suicide, for better or worse, now becomeconceptually linked. Denying the possibility for happinessto anotherthrough murder is legitimateonly by denyingto oneselfthroughsuicide.A regulativeidea, "a principle of reasonableculpability," appears.The rebel now knows himself or herselfin the existentiallimits he or she acceptsor, better, the degreeof tolerancehe or sheextendsto othersin pursuinghis or her goals. The point is simple enough.Indeed,even as a young man, Camuscould maintain that: Politics are madefor men, and not men for politics. We do not want to live on fables. In the world of violence and deatharoundus, there is no placefor hope.But perhapsthereis room for civilization, for real civilization, which putstruth beforefablesandlife beforedreams.And this civilization has nothing to do with hope. In it, man lives on his truths.23

**

*

But what are thosetruths?Camuscould boldly state:"Man is the only creature who refusesto be what he is."24 But what doesthis inflated sentence really mean?And is it, either practically or philosophically,the casethat because"I rebel,we exist?" Circular reasoningunderpinsthis claim, which appearsall the more arbitrary preciselybecauseCamusrefusesto offer a generaltheory of human nature or society. His defendersmight admire his philosophical modesty.But this doesn'tchangethe questionableassertionon which his argumentultimately rests,namely,that "the first and only evidencethat is suppliedto me,within the termsof the absurdistexperience,is rebellion."25 Rebellion is seenas an essentialelementof the human condition; Camusconsidersit inherentlyworthy of respect.He knows, however,that not every form of rebellion is justifiable. His aim in linking murderwith suicide-thewillingness to exchangeone life for another-isto place a limit on rebellion, differentiateit from revolution, and "humanize"conflict in the face of the bureaucraticmurder of facelessmillions by totalitarian regimes.But thereare problemswith all of this. Neofascistsand skinheads also see themselvesas engagingin rebellion, but surely Camuscannot considerit necessaryto legitimate their initial expressionof outrageand, only then, condemnthe exaggeratedform their rebellion takes. Enough Nazis and Communistswere also quite willing to risk dying in exchange for the murderof opponentsin the brawls andstreetbattlesanticipatingthe rise of Hitler. Rebellion is ultimately identified with those actions of which Camus approves,and the uncertaintyof his argumentis reflectedin the sprawling

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structureof the work and its high-flown, often pompous,style.Thereis no serious historical or political analysis,and ideas are never contextualized within traditions. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Sade share the stage with philosopherslike Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.Differing interpretationsof thesethinkersare simply ignoredand,strangely,their views aredealtwith in a completelyuninspiredfashion. Camussaid nothing new abouttotalitarianismor, for that matter,the importanceof civil libertiesandrepublicanvalues.His criticisms of Frenchintellectualswith communistsympathieswere also unoriginal. Political commentatorslike RaymondAron had already attacked their theories with far more intellectual rigor, while antifascist writers, such as Arthur Koestler or Manes Sperber,depictedthe reality of life under communism far more dramatically. Indeed, making matters worse,TheRebellacksany practicalreferentfor its metaphysicaljudgments. No antiauthoritarianmovementwilling to engagein violence,which includes the antifascistresistance,can begin with the idea of equally exchangingthe lives of its partisansfor thoseof its enemies;it mustattempt to maximize costsfor the enemyand minimize its own losses.It is not enoughsimply to note the extremecasein order to justifY the rule. Camus is, of course,correctin emphasizingthe effect of ideologyon action andthe mannerin which revolutionsof the pastgeneratedorgansof terror. But he never dealswith the constraintsin which movementsoperated.He never makesany referenceto institutionsor interestsor possiblestructuralimbalancesof power in defining "oppression"or "exploitation." He also never dealswith the inherentdifferencesbetweena theory of revolution and a theory of rule. All this, however,generallygot lost in the emotionallyand politically chargedclimate in which discussionof The Rebeltook place. Communist hacksblastedit unmercifully. But, somewhatmoreominously,conservatives and CatholicsapplaudedCamusfor showinghow revolutionsonly produce new hangmen.The extremesmet in their criticisms of the book. Camus surely dismissedthoseof the communistsand deploredthe "misunderstanding"of his work by the political right. But even liberal critics, who supportedhis attack on utopianism andidentification with democratic values,expressedskepticismabouthis philosophicalclaimslike the absolute value of rebellion. RaymondAron snidely complimentedCamusonly for being less of a romantic thanJean-PaulSartre.26 Thus, therewere already doubtsaboutTheRebelbeforeCamusengagedin his bitter debatewith the virtual founderof modernFrenchexistentialism.

**

*

Camusand Sartrehad becomefriends during the occupation.Both grew famousearlyin life. Sartrewas eightyearsolder than Camus,who was born in 1913. Camusgrew up in Belcourt, a working-classneighborhoodin Algiers in extremepoverty,while Sartrewas part of an upper-middle-class family in Alsaceand a cousinof Albert Schweitzer.Camustook his degree

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at the University of Algiers, while Sartrestudiedphilosophyat the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure.Sartrewas short, ugly, talkative, and a man of the city. He despisedreligion, liberalism,and everythingconnected with the bourgeoisie.He was, physically and psychologically,almost the mirror oppositeof Camus.But, whateverthe differencesbetweenthem, their work dealt with similar themes:the individual, the absurd,freedom, and responsibility.Both beganas bohemians;both were artists and interestedin the theater,both were antifascists,and both ultimately formulated their politics only after the war. They associatedwith the samecircle and, following the liberation, contributedto giving the "left bank" of Paris its intellectualglitter. Much hasbeenwritten aboutthe relationsbetweenthesetwo leading intellectualsof their generation.Their admirershave, in fact, virtually createda competitionbetweenthem.And for this reason,it is necessaryto say a word about their relative standing.Judgingthem is possibleonly by evaluatingtheir contributionsin different arenasof intellectual work. Camusnever produceda philosophicaltreatiseon the scale of Being and Nothingnessand the much-undervaluedCritique of Dialectical Reasonor a biographywith the depth and grandeurof those Sartrewrote aboutJean Genet,the famousplaywright and novelist, or GustaveFlaubert.Even the essaysof Camusexhibitedfar less rangeand sheerbrilliance than thoseof Sartre.But Camuswas, clearly, the more talentedartist. He also exhibited a senseof measureand clarity of ethical purposelacking in his rival. And, by 1952, they had becomerivals. Sartreand Camuscompetedfor a similar audience,they chosedifferent political pathsfollowing the fragmentationof the Resistance,and each becamemore suspiciousabout the ambitionsof the other. Camusbelievedhis friend was creatingan uncritical "mystique"of the working class,while Sartresawthe concernof Camus with democracyand limited revolt as ultimately justifying Westernimperialism. Both were right in part. Indeed,while Sartreincreasinglyturneda blind eyeto the repressionexercisedby revolutionaries,Camusincreasingly found himselfcast into the despisedrole of a reactionaryanticommunist. The burgeoningmistrust and misunderstandingbroke into the open with a review of The Rebelin the legendaryjournal Les TempsModernes, which Sartrehad founded and edited, by Fran