Twenty Years On

The ghost of communism is not haunting Western Europe. Paris is no longer the capital of revolutionary hope. A visitor returning there after a long interval could hardly believe that this was the same town where twenty years earlier the established order was trembling, and imagination was supposed to seize power. Ironically, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary, the French staged one of these general elections which, for all the apparent pomp and passion, in no way question the nature of the regime—no more, that is, than do similar polls held in Britain, Germany, or the United States. Mutatis mutandis, Prague is not the only European city to have gone back to "normal." Does it mean that the hopes aroused by the uprising of May 1968 were mere illusions, that the issues raised by rebellious students and striking workers, in dramatic if utopian fashion, have become irrelevant? Before trying to argue the opposite, I should reveal my vested interests.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website

Ancient history · Capital (architecture) · Communism · Economic history · Economics · Order (exchange) · Passion · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Visitor pattern · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Psychology

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