After the revolution: Discovering the limits of class struggle

Abstract

As often occurs when there are great revolutions, the enthusiasm for the overthrow of the Old regime ended up attributing to the revolutionary action a prodigious capacity of producing a political and social reality that was completely new and without any conflict. The history of socialism and the ‘socialist camp’ is a difficult and painful process of learning that leads to the overcoming of original messianism and to the rediscovery of realities (state, nation, market, religion) and conflicts believed to have been overcome and to a less exalting and more realistic interpretation of class struggle.