834707262

system was abolished and power gained, the revolutionary zeal star-ted to lose its vigour unexpectedly among the participants of the revo-lution. Along these lines, I do not think only of enthusiasm and (later on) disappointment with the finał cause of the revolution on the part of its participants who, unlike the working class, naively expected miracles from the revolution. Their naive, almost religious attitude toward the revolution must lead them »logically« toward disappointment; they, namely, believe that the victory of the revolution or, morę precisely, the winning of power will sweep away all evil and in-justice among people. To their mind, socialism does not mean the achievement of the »more advanced life’s form toward which the society of today tends« (Marx) but a fulfillment of their naive image of paradise on the earth. I also do not think here of the disappointment with socialism among some of its theoreticians whose mechani-cistic theories of society have broken down. Their concepts of socialism, those which neglect man’s creativity and his aspiration for free-dom, must »logically« lead toward disappointment, for people are not rats, we ought to admit, and they resent permanent experimenting, drills and regulations of a »system«. However, I do not imply here, as it might be understood, a complete lack of enthusiasm among the working class. although stalinism offers abundat evidence of it. Con-sidering the disappearance of the revolutionary enthusiasm in con-temporary socialism, I bear in mind, first of all, the generał State of the society in which the ideas, that used to inspire it up to the last moment, belong no morę to the entire society but are monopolised by the privileged ruling class - political bureaucracy. We may label such a »new state« stagnation, deviation, statism, stalinism, personality cult, entropy of the revolution or simply a crisis - but nothing will be altered within the course itself; this will only give evidence on the depth of our comprehension and understanding of what is underway.

However, it has been sufficient for the historical course of socialism to face events such as Workers’ Councils in Yugoslavia, the »Polish October«, the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR or the «Spring in Prague« to have hopes in socialism rise again, hopes in its fitness to cope with any obstacłe, to leave definitely be-hind it »cults«, »deviations« and »crisis«, and reveal its humanistic features. These hopes have not only awakened enthusiasm in the country, which was suddenly stirred up, but have been also aroused throughout international socialism.

It is sufficient to bear in mind, for instance, the expectations that were aroused in the socialist movement by the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR or the »Spring in Prague«. But that enthusiasm broke down soon again, and we were seized by the former anxiety: the brutal military occupation of socialist Czecho-slovakia and the new attempts of Stalin’s rehabilitation have, most likely, stopped our hopes short for a longer time.

Is not that cyclothymic course, that shift from enthusiasm to de-pression, a token of socialism’s crisis? Marx indicated such a course in the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th century: »Bouregeois revoluti-°ns«, writes Marx in his 'Eighteenth Brumaire ... ’ like those of the

476