Must Revolutions Fail?

Abstract

It is November 1990. A year ago, high winds of revolution swept the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe and blew away the all-too-familiar scene of nomenklatura rule. Vistas of open skies broke the low clouds of Brezhnev’s world in which sullen submission and grey misery were the order of the day. But today, a year later, all is not well. The discovery that many of the old party bureaucrats are still in place and have even managed to turn their coats swiftly in order to become irreplaceable is almost the least of the worries. The leaders of the revolution who were once united in purpose have fallen out with each other; solidarity has turned into strife, the forum into an arena. Citizens who have just regained the right to vote find the exercise futile and fail to turn out in sufficient numbers to provide even a modest quorum (as in the Hungarian local elections). Economic conditions continue to deteriorate to the point where the ancien régime begins to look to many like the ‘good old days’. Instead of civil society emerging triumphant, primordial tribal allegiances tempt self-appointed spokesmen to a threatening insistence on homogeneity. Generalized citizenship rights which accommodate difference and heterogeneity are the victim. Almost everywhere, there is a smell of violence in the air.

George Orwell Lecture, given at Birkbeck College, University of London, on 15 November 1990