The Third World War

A poster on the main door of the Sorbonne soviet read: “The revolution which is beginning will call in question not only capitalist society but industrial society. The consumers’ society must perish of a violent death. The society of alienation must disappear from history. We are inventing a new and original world. Imagination is seizing power.” The tone is manifestly the same as that of the final chorus of Shelley’s Hellas, from which I quoted at the end of my comments, a fortnight ago, on the Campus New Left: “The world’s great age begins anew, The golden years return. . . .” Let us examine further how the New Left’s romantic fervor crystallizes into doctrine and program.

Democracy. The New Left’s views on democracy are not very different from Lenin’s, though tainted with “adventurism” and “left-wing Communism: an infantile disorder.”

JB

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James Burnham

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A poster on the main door of the Sorbonne soviet read: “The revolution which is beginning will call in question not only capitalist society but industrial society. The consumers’ society must perish of a violent death. The society of alienation must disappear from history. We are inventing a new and original world. Imagination is seizing power.” The tone is manifestly the same as that of the final chorus of Shelley’s Hellas, from which I quoted at the end of my comments, a fortnight ago, on the Campus New Left: “The world’s great age begins anew, The golden years return. . . .” Let us examine further how the New Left’s romantic fervor crystallizes into doctrine and program.

Democracy. The New Left’s views on democracy are not very different from Lenin’s, though tainted with “adventurism” and “left-wing Communism: an infantile disorder.”