New Left Review I/183, September-October 1990
Jürgen Habermas
What Does Socialism Mean Today? The Rectifying Revolution and the Need for New Thinking on the Left
There has recently been a spate of articles about the end of the socialist illusion, about the failure of an idea, and even about West European or German intellectuals finally coming to terms with the past. [*] Originally published as ‘Nachholende Revolution und linker Revisionsbedarf: Was heisst Sozialismus heute?’, in Die Nachholende Revolution: Kleine Politische Schriften vii, Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 179–204. In them, rhetorical questions always prepare the way for the refrain that utopian thought and philosophies of history necessarily end in subjugation. The critique of the philosophy of history is, however, old hat. Löwith’s Meaning in History was translated into German in 1953. [1] On the relations between ethics, utopian thought and its critique, see Karl-Otto Apel’s clear contribution to W. Voßkamp, ed., Utopieforschung, Frankfurt am Main 1985, vol. I, pp. 325–55. So what are the terms of today’s debate? How should one assess the historical significance of the revolutionary changes in Eastern and Central Europe? What are the consequences of the bankruptcy of state socialism for political movements whose roots lie in the nineteenth century, or for the theoretical traditions of the West European Left?
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