Abstract

Marxism Reconsidered - I

History has played one of her stupefying tricks: for it is now clear that democracy is on the defensive as much against the totalitarianism of Russian communism as against that of fascism. And since socialism without democracy is a monstrosity, socialism too is on the defensive. Nor can the Communist parties escape being enemies of socialism and democracy, for as carriers of Communist totalitarianism and as "transmission belts" of the Kremlin's foreign policy they must act in disregard of the democratic and socialist interests of the countries in which they operate. What has happened is the collapse of a whole movement and ideology, the exposure of a whole conception of social change. Out of the resulting disillusionment and the breaking of old allegiances comes the cry for a regrouping of radical forces.