The Prospects for Revolution
Political Thinking in the West and East in the 20th Century
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Numerous Western intellectuals became apologists for totalitarian regimes during the 20th century. East Central European philosophers and thinkers such as Jan Patočka, Václav Havel, and Czesław Miłosz, who knew both National Socialist and Communist tyranny, enjoyed a special immunity against such misled thinking. But their knowledge did not lead them to withdraw from politics. Rather, they searched within the European philosophical heritage for points of contact for another under-standing of politics. Using their power of the powerless, they made an essential contribution to the collapse of the Communist system.
(Osteuropa 2/2008, pp. 81–90)