Please note: this is an uncorrected version, reproduced here solely to show the references

What can the left learn from 1968?
The Czechoslovak crisis, the left in Western Europe, revolution and reform¹
Maud Bracke

An exclusive focus on events in Western Europe can
lead to the loss of understanding that could
be gained from events such as the Prague Spring.

The Left in Western Europe today is haunted by a self-perception of crisis. It is widely claimed that a general crisis of identity appeared after the fall of communist regimes in Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989-1991. The post-1991 developments of the Left in Western Europe seem to indicate that the mere existence in Eastern Europe of regimes defining themselves as socialist was a constitutive element of identity for the Left in Western Europe as a whole. Can the Left today learn anything regarding its programme and internal divisions by looking back at the experiences of those regimes in Europe which defined themselves as "real existing socialism"? In current political debates on the West European Left, a silence often surrounds the past experiences of socialism in Eastern Europe and how to evaluate these. Far from claiming that historians should come up with straightforward answers to this problem, I see a specific way in which historians might contribute to the current debate about the identity and future of the Left. By investigating historically why the Left in the past perceived and responded to these experiences of "real socialism" as it did, we might something about patterns of identity (re-)construction of the Western Left

This article is a very modest attempt to explore this possibility, by looking at some of the ways in which the West European Left reacted to one of the major crises in European communist rule, the Prague Spring and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. I argue that the West European Left as a whole, at this time, was limited in its capacity to learn from the Prague Spring. At least one cause for this, was its need to position itself in a static way with respect to the October Revolution and the Soviet Union, and with respect to what I propose to call the old "reform versus revolution" standard. As for today, I argue that the Left should seriously question the "reform versus revolution" standard, the paradigm by which any Left program was judged and often still is. By showing how contingent the (socialist) concepts of reform and revolution were and are, I suggest the inadequacy of certain static, old interpretations of these concepts for post-1991 definitions of Left political identities and programmes. This, however, is not a case for minimising the value of ideological traditions and isolating political programmes from their historical context. Rather, as a historian, I try to identify a number of political contradictions which arise from the anachronistic holding on to old ideological classifications in a very new context.

In the period from 1917 up to 1991, any party of the Left in Western Europe was forced to position itself vis-à-vis the October revolution and the "first socialist state"². Not only communist parties but also reformist parties were trapped by the existential need to take 1917 and the Soviet regime as ultimate points of reference - either negative or positive - for their discussions of what socialism was.³ This was tightly connected to a rather simple self-understanding and self-ranking of any Left party in the West on the reform-revolution cleavage line. The ideological origins of this lie in the different interpretations of Marxism in connection to the nature of capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bernstein's claims that capitalism had fundamentally changed and that it had now become possible to reform it while operating within the framework of legal state institutions, became the point of departure for most of the socialist and later social democratic parties in Western Europe - if not in discourse, at least in practice. The Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the establishment of the Soviet Union and the constitution of the Third International, with its strongly anti-reformist and anti-revisionist rhetoric, polarised the previously more blurred positions. Henceforth, taking either a positive or negative stand on the Soviet Union as a model for socialism, automatically implied positioning oneself on the reform-versus-revolution standard. Even when, from the 1960s onwards, new issues were at stake and both reform and revolution took on new meanings, positions ultimately polarised on this cleavage line. Although the New Left utilised a different concept of revolution than the "old" Left did and connected it to a new agenda and programme, it did not escape the trap of the antagonism between reform and revolution. A fierce critique of reformism and an auto-definition as being more revolutionary than any of the "old" Left currents, were constitutive of the identity of the New Left.

In the 1960s and 1970s, there were specific reasons for the fact that, ultimately, the socialist regimes served as a point of reference, either positive or negative, for the definition of what socialism was. Firstly, up to the late 1970s communism lived a phase of world expansion in terms of the spread of socialist regimes, either Moscow- or Peking- aligned. It seemed a fact that socialism in one form or another was becoming increasingly influential on a world scale. To those who called themselves socialist in the West (in any variation) it seemed unrealistic to ignore this gigantic fact. Secondly, the tension in the West European Left caused by the Sino-Soviet rift and the power struggle between Soviet-aligned communist parties and Maoist parties and groups, colonised the debate of whether the Soviet Union and the People's Democracies were socialist. In terms of Marxist(-Leninist) doctrine, Maoism in the West from the early 1960s on caused the first major challenge to the Soviet-aligned Left since Trotskyism, because, like Trotskyism, it claimed to be a critique from the left on the SU, that is to say defining itself as more revolutionary and more radical. The fact that one of the very raisons d'être of Maoist movements in the West was the denial of the socialist and revolutionary nature of the Soviet system created a situation in which a socialist programme had only two options. It could either position itself somewhere along this cleavage line (which obviously the Moscow- and Peking-aligned parties did), or it could abstain from an evaluative debate on the nature of the East European regimes (which, roughly speaking, most of the social democratic parties from the 1970s onwards did).

1968, East and West
I will develop here some thoughts on what the Left today can learn from "1968". The choice of looking at events in Eastern Europe and their impact on the West, rather than the 1968 events in Western Europe themselves, hints at a critique of our historical understanding of 1968. In most of the academic and political literature on 1968, the events in the West are central to the understanding and periodisation of "les annees 1968":⁴ the mass mobilisation at universities, in factories, on the streets. There has been an overload of interest in the historic importance of the 1968 events in Western Europe ("an interpretation in search of an event", as one author has put it).⁵ Events in other regions have had to "fit into" the grand narratives about Western Europe and the United States. Through a shift away from the Western perspective (along the lines of what in feminist scholarship is referred to as "politics of location"), and through the development of an analytical framework and periodisation based on events in Eastern Europe, we might check instead whether it is possible to make the events in the West fit in. In the decade following the 1968 events, up to Eurocommunism of the late 1970s, uncertainty existed as to how to assess the impact of the Prague events on the West European Left. Often the academic and political literature was characterised by a lack of interest in and understanding of the events in the East, and by a number of taboos regarding the involvement of the West European Left in the project of communist "normalisation" (i.e. re-alignment on Soviet "orthodox" positions and politics) after 1968. This holds particularly true for the Soviet-aligned communist parties, but to a lesser extent also for those groups and parties engaged in alliances with them, as well as for government candidates.

The Prague Spring is a particularly valid case for exploring the gaps between events in the East and the perception of these in the West European Left, as all analyses - rightly - assessed that Czechoslovakia, of all the socialist countries, was most similar to West European countries in terms of its history, politico-intellectual traditions and economic development. The Prague Spring, taking place between January and August 1968, can be understood as a process of gradual reform of socialist economy, society and politics as well a national cultural and intellectual revival. Although the changes taking place were of a reformist nature (such as the gradual dismantling of censorship, the partial disconnection of party and state institutions, and limited liberalisation of the planned economy), their cumulative effect was certain to bring about a fundamental metamorphosis of Czechoslovak socialism. Indeed, Dubcek and others spoke of a "new model" of socialism.⁶ When the Soviet Union, aided by four Warsaw Pact allies, invaded the country on 21 August 1968, one of its main motivations was precisely that of destroying a potential alternative model for Soviet-style socialism. Overall, the contemporary analysis of the events in Czechoslovakia in the West European Left was one of biases, misperceptions and misinterpretations. As has been demonstrated convincingly for the case of the French Left, the Prague Spring and subsequent events were only interesting in as far as they responded to what were perceived as the current great problems of French society and politics.⁷ A number of misreadings of the events obstructed a clear analysis of deeper-lying problems connected to the nature of socialism. A wide gap in political and cultural experiences lie at the basis of this poblem, but also a static evaluation of the socialist regimes and of the concept clusters of revolution and reform.

An example of the misreadings of the Prague events by the Western Left and lexicographic confusion, is the issue of autogestion (self-determination) and factory councils. In the French New Left autogestion was a concept central to its political utopia as well as its self-understanding, referring most often to French-Trotskyite tradition and to Yugoslavia, and considered a highly revolutionary, "bottom-up" and anti-bureaucratic idea. In contrast, the factory councils installed in the Spring of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, under the party policy of self-determination for enterprises, were embedded in various ideological traditions. Although a more radical interpretation of the factory councils as "working people councils" existed, particularly in the proposals of Ota Sik, the councils which were eventually installed on an experimental basis in June 1968, were attempts to professionalise and modernise economic management, rather than to democratise it.⁸ Only after the invasion did the factory councils become symbols in Czechoslovakia for what could have been possible in terms of political end economic democratisation, and only then did the idea enjoy a basis of mass support.⁹

If we take a closer look at the responses to the Prague Spring on the West European Left, three groups can be distinguished: firstly the Soviet-aligned communist parties, secondly the reformist Left (Labour parties, social democratic parties, traditional socialist parties adhering to the Socialist International, some tendencies in the Italian communist party), and thirdly the political parties of the New Left (in particular: Maoist, Trotskyite and Titoist parties, new socialist parties which tried to connect to the student movements as French PSU and the Italian PSIUP). In the case of the Soviet-aligned communist parties the "mental colonisation" was obviously most evident, and the reform-versus-revolution standard was entirely taken over from Soviet doctrine. Although nearly all of the West European communist parties afterwards condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia of August 1968, they felt a need to criticise some aspects of the Prague Spring reforms and revival for their "reformism". This was a typical case of lexicographic confusion which can only be understood against the background of the reform-revolution paradigm: reformism here did not refer to the fact that these leaders proposed reforms, but was a term used to dismiss these reforms as steps on the road to re-installing capitalism. As the tension between Czechoslovakia and the Warsaw Pact members rose during the Spring and Summer of 1968, the West European communist parties increasingly pointed at supposedly dangerous tendencies in the movement. Even the leadership of the Italian communist party PCI, by far the most autonomous-minded communist party in the West and hence the most capable of offering genuine support to Dubcek, considered that there were "various anti-socialist elements" among the reform-minded intellectuals.¹⁰

In the case of the reformist socialist and social democratic parties, positions shifted over time from more or less genuine enthusiasm to disinterest. These parties generally valued the Prague Spring positively, although rather for its demonstration of autonomy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union than as a socialist experiment. After the invasion, however, their own development of socialist thought and politics was disconnected from past or current events in Eastern Europe. This shift in attitude was to do with a particular understanding of the interaction between détente in Europe and socialism. Inside the reformist Left, there was a widespread perception in the 1960s of a convergence between anti-capitalist contestation in Western Europe and dissent in Eastern Europe, geared to develop into a "Third Way" between capitalism and Soviet-style socialism. The necessary international framework which was needed to make this possible, was the shift from a Cold War situation in Europe to détente. Détente, from the mid-1960 onwards, provided the socialist and social democratic parties - either in government or in opposition - with their own foreign policy. Their vision of European détente (often called "dynamic détente") involved not only the loosening of tension between the politico-military blocs, but also an egalitarisation of power relations inside these blocs, as well as a softening of the socialist regimes. This was understood as a parallel development to the "socialisation" of the regimes in Western Europe.¹¹

As the invasion bluntly crushed hopes that had risen regarding intra-bloc diversification on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain, the reformist Left lost interest in the Prague Spring and its potential value for the debate on socialism. Moreover, the invasion demonstrated that one particular definition of détente was going to take place: détente controlled by the superpowers and not necessarily paralleled by changes inside the military blocs. To social democracy in Western Europe, this implied that if there were to be a Third Way, it would only come about in Western Europe, and that this should happen in an entirely autonomous way with respect to events in the East. The evaluation of the regimes in the East was henceforth most often disconnected from the ongoing debates on what socialism should be and how to develop it in their own country.

Moreover, criticism of the East European regimes was at times self-censored. For some socialist parties, like the French PS, this was because they did not wish to upset their (potential) alliance with the communist party. For others, in government, it was even more difficult to discuss the issue of socialism and democracy in the East. As the policy of détente in the early 1970s was recuperated by the superpowers, and the first agreements on disarmament and on the German problem were signed, condemnations of the Soviet Union had to be worded carefully. Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik can also be considered in this light: it was now clearer than it had been before that Ostpolitik would have to pass through Moscow - which explains West Germany's low-key protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. With Ostpolitik, the German social democrats aimed at influencing the East European regimes, without letting the experiences in these regimes influence their own debates on socialism.¹² If the Cold War anti-communism of the 1950s had definitely been abandoned (which for example lead Richard Lowenthal to start arguing in the 1970s that the Soviet Union should no longer be considered totalitarian),¹³ this was more motivated by diplomacy than by a wish to investigate the nature of socialist rule.

To the parties of the New Left, neither the Prague Spring nor Dubcek were forceful symbols. Due to its anti-revisionism, anti-reformism and need for revolutionary symbols, the New Left, before the invasion took place, paid little attention to and gave meek support to the reforms carried out by the Czechoslovak communist party. In France, the Trotskyite weekly Lutte ouvriere labelled Dubcek and the reformers in the Czechoslovak communist party as "reformist", "nationalist" and, probably worse, "bureaucratic".¹⁴ Unlike Che Gevara, Mao or Ho Chi Minh, Dubcek did not represent what was needed: a charismatic leader of a revolutionary movement, understood in the classic Leninist sense. It was only at the moment of the Soviet-led invasion that the Prague Spring became truly interesting to part of the New Left, as it brought Soviet imperialism to the surface. Especially to the Maoist and Trotskyite groups, this was the most appropriate piece of evidence that the Soviet Union was imperialist and could therefore not be considered socialist or revolutionary. Hence, the Prague Spring was mystified after and because of the invasion, and these parties of the New Left projected their own support for it back into the past. Thus, also the New Left measured the value of the Prague Spring according to the old reform-versus-revolution standard, considering it not revolutionary enough and too reformist. Although the New Left sought to go beyond old definitions of revolutionary politics, it was unable to escape the limitations which the revolution-reform paradigm imposed on the debate on socialism. Problematic in the case of the New Left was that its concept of revolution was a fundamentally different from the "classic" one since Lenin, used in a different register, and aiming at different goals.

The left today
Can the political parties of the Left today learn anything from the trajectories of revolution and reform in the histories of its own political discourses and programmes? The dichotomy reform-revolution in politics today continues to blur our understanding of contemporary and past developments. It reproduces old divisions, sometimes with a bitterness that is no longer accurate. In my view, the Left today should critically rethink the concepts of revolution and reform and their utilisation in politics, and be aware of their context-dependency. In a first instance, this goes along the line of what the New Left was about in the 1970s: revealing the need for revolution in the spheres of everyday life (gender, etnicity, sexuality, knowledge, post-material values). It should, however, not halt there. I agree in this respect with the observation that this shift to what some scholars have called the "artistic critique of capitalism", has created a gap between conventional politics and revolution.¹⁵ In my view, new ways should be found to re-connect concepts of revolution to "high politics", on a new and non-Leninist basis. In this programme, the 70 years history of socialism in Europe should not be ignored, quite to the contrary. There is a need for political analyses (not entirely coinciding with historical ones) of these experiences, critical but motivated by a wish to understand the tension between "socialism" as a theory and its historical "reality". The intellectual antagonism introduced by 1917 between revolution and reform is not useful in this perspective. Concepts of reform should not be understood in antithesis to revolution, and should not avoid the notion of utopia. On the other hand, concepts of revolution might still be viable in the future when they refer to propositions for a re-organisation of the social and political order of our societies and of their relation to the wider world, or to a questioning of our basic mental structures and world-views. This, however, will not be the case if made up of void rhetorics and reminiscent of old romanticism.

1. I would like to thank Sarah Bracke for her useful comments to a draft of this article.
2. In this article, I will focus on political parties which positioned themselves in a Marxist tradition. For lack of space, I will not include here other forms of political and social movements of the Left, as for example certain anarchist, ecological and feminist groups.
3. Sassoon, D. 100 years of socialism. The West European Left in the 20th century. London, IBTauris, 1996, pp. 31-41.
4. The concept of "les annees 68" or "the 68s" was introduced in Dreyfus, G., Frank, R., Levy, M.-F., Zancarini-Fournel, M., eds. Les annees '68. Le temps de la contestation. Bruxelles-Paris, EditionsComplexe, 2000.
5. Khilnani, S. Arguing Revolution. The Intellectual Left in Post-war France. New Haven, London, 1993, p. 122.
6. Gordon Skilling, H. Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution. New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 833-836. 7. Gremion, P. Paris-Prague. La gauche face au renouveau et a la regression tchecoslovaques, 1968-1978. Paris, Juillard, 1985.
8. On the factory councils, see Gordon Skilling, o.c., pp. 433-443.
9. For this view see, for example Gremion, Paris-Prague, o.c., pp. 115-117.
10. Report by party head, Luigi Longo, to the PCI's central organ Direzione on 10 May 1968, following his trip to Czechoslovakia. Archivio PCI (Direzione), kept in the Istituto Gramsci, Rome.
11. For a similar view, see Sassoon, 100 years of socialism, o.c., pp. 324-335.
12. To be sure, Ostpolitik was a more complex process, involving also a dimension "from below" which aimed at favouring contacts between civil society in East and West. See, for example, Garton Ash, T. In Europe's name. Germany and the divided continent. London, Jonathan Cape, 1993, pp. 36-45.
13. Jones, W.D. The lost debate. German socialist intellectuals and totalitarianism. Urbana, Chicago, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1999, pp. 185-199.
14. For example, in "Menaces sovietiques contre la Tchecoslovaquie", s.n., Lutte ouvriere, 3/7/68. Lutte ouvriere was one of the major Trotskyite organisations in France, in favour of direct action in factories and elsewhere, and very present in the student and factory protests in May-June 1968.
15. Boltanski, L. "The Left after May 1968 and the longing for total revolution", Thesis 11, n. 69, May 2002, pp. 7-10.