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Realism and Utopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Edgar Morin
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Extract

The problem of the real is that we think we understand it very well, whereas in fact it is not very well understood at all. The past, our past, which seems absolutely clear to us, in fact is not so. If we reflect upon the 20th century which, all things considered, is our past, we come to realize that not only communism but also nazism - the major phenomena which marked it - owed very little to systematic thought. The Soviet version of Marxism, to which the label ‘communist’ was given, was, in the literal sense of the word, a utopia: meaning something whose location is nowhere. The word ‘communism’ served to mask a reality which was radically different from its ideology. A reality so difficult to analyse, comprehend and know that François Furet, an author who had been a communist during the hard-line period, has been able to write about the passions of the Revolution, in for example Le passé d'une illusion [The Passing of an Illusion], without for all that making obvious the fundamentally religious properties of this communism, which saw its mission as bringing about salvation on earth, so constituting a mighty source of hope. As with all great religions, communism created its own martyrs, its heroes, its executioners and its persecutors. It was not just another religion, though, but a veritable phenomenon which ravaged and transformed its century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , February 2006 , pp. 135 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2006

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References

Notes

1. An initial version of this text was published under the title ‘Pour une utopie réaliste’ in Rencontres de Chateauvallon autour d’Edgar Morin, Paris, Arléa, 1996. The present revised version is from 2005.

2. François Furet, Le Passé d’une illusion, Paris, éd. Robert Laffont & Calmann-Lévy, 1995, translated into English as The Passing of an Illusion: The idea of communism in the twentieth century, trans. Deborah Furet, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999.

3. With the onset of Glasnost, Afanasev contributed actively to ‘restoring their past’ to the Soviet people, particularly that of the Stalinist period. He abandoned politics to devote himself entirely to the Russian State University of Human Sciences which he established and of which he became rector. Works: That Great Light in the East (1989, written in collaboration with Jean Daniel); My Russia of Ill Fate (1992); Russia, the Crucial Issues of Today (2002) (Editor's note). (None of these appear to have been translated into English as of 2005: trans.)

4. Born in 1946, Michnik was one of the leading protestors against the Communist regime, firstly within the precursor movement of 1970, then in 1980 during the demonstrations which brought the Solidarity trade union and its leader, Lech Walesa, to the world's attention. Michnik's opposition activities cost him six years in prison. Today he is editor in chief of the first independent Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza [The Electoral Gazette] which he founded in 1989. (Editor's note)

5. See, on this subject: Diogenes No. 176 (Winter) 1996, Tolerance between Intolerance and the Intolerable, edited by Paul Ricæur. (Editor's note)

6. Austrian social-democratic politician (1882-1938). Theoretician and spokesperson for Austrian Marxism before the First World War. Works: Nationalitätenfrage und Sozialdemokratie (1907), published in English as The Question of Nationalities and Social Democracy, trans. Joseph O’Donnell, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2000; Der Weg zum Sozialismus [The Way to Socialism] (1917), Bolschewismus oder Sozialdemokratie? [Bolshevism or Social-Democracy?] (1920); Sozialdemokratie, Religion und Kirche [Social-Democracy, Religion and the Church] (1927) (Editor's note). (The latter three works do not appear to be available in any English translation: trans.)

7. Francesco Alberoni, Falling in Love, trans. Lawrence Venuti, New York, Random House, 1983.