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es and development tendencies of the established society, and finally its implementation should offer better prospects for the pacification of the struggle for existence and a free development of human needs and faculties.⁸⁹

In Marcuse’s and Adorno’s works we freąuently come across pas-sages where they equate the critical theory with utopia and see in this its advantage.⁸⁷ Since this view has been fairly widely publicized, it will not be amiss to outline at the end of this article some essential differences between utopia and the revolutionary theory. This does not denote contempt for the cultural-historical significance of utopian thought which has often foreshadowed the progressive social move-ments that developed much later. It is also not accepted that utopian thought has lost its former function. But this thought must not be as-sessed in a generał and non-historical manner, sińce there is a vast difference between the cultural-historical value and the socio-political significance of different utopian works. It would be difficult to accept the statement that »the utopian element has long been the only pro-gressive element in philosophy«,⁸⁸ if »utopian element« is taken to mean comprehensive utopian works, and not (as in Mannheim’s des-cription of utopia) contents in what may be regarded as non-utopian philosophical thought in which it transcends the existing situation, and subseąuent experience confirms these anticipations. In this manner, however, the meaning of utopia is wrongfully altered, because a confusion is created without any gain for the history of ideas. Here a revolutionary theory is compared with a thought which builds in a utopian manner comprehensive ideas of society basically different from the existing one. But let us come to the comparison. (1) When utopian thought is considered historically, it becomes immediately ap-parent that the realization of the idea is very frequently not discussed at all, or is only explained as an accident.⁸⁹ In other utopian works, and sometimes even in practical activity, the protagonist of a project-ed social change is understood in a purely »utopian« manner (Saint Simon) or attempts are madę to carry out the transformation by means of an activity which is easily localized and has no pronounced social consequences (numerous colonies of Fourier’s and Cabet’s followers in the USA in the last century). A revolutionary theory must contain a historically realistic answer to the question about a revolutionary subject. An answer can only be provided by a fundamental analysis

®* H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man, Studies in the Ideology of Advanccd In-dustrial Society, (1964), Beacon Press, Boston 1968, p. 220.

⁹¹ Haug tells that in one of his lectures delivered in Berlin in 1967, Marcuse said that socialism should return from science back to utopia. (See W. F. Haug, Das Ganze und das ganz Andere, Zur Kritik der reinen revolutionaren Transzen-denz, in the book by J. Habermas (Hrsg.), Antworten an Herbert Marcuse, p. 52).

^M H. Marcuse, »Philosophy and Critical Theory«, in H. Marcuse, Negation, Essays in Critical Theory, Beacon Press, Boston, 1969, p. 143.

⁹⁹ As an echo from far away, this thought was hinted at in One Dimensional Man. In his dilemma whether a revolutionary change was possible in the developed industrial capitalist societies, Marcuse concluded that the stabilizing forces in this society were predominant and added: »Perhaps an accident may alter the situation...« (H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man, (1964), Beacon Press, Boston, 1968,

p. XV.)

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