JAMES BURNHAM THE NEW LEFT AND THE RIGHT THE A conservative friend learn that New Left "participatory The ultimate meaning of political THIRD of mine who does a democracy" means the coercion-by relationships is revealed in the ultimate WORLD good deal of profes- putsch tactics, "intoxication," violence test: a revolutionary situation. On WAR sional talking men- -of the majority by a self-nominated which side of the barricades do you tioned the other day minority elite; that the romantically line up? The revolutionary situation in that on discussion programs, lately, he anarchic New Left freedoms include France this spring again confirmed that is often pitted with a liberal and a New the freedom to defame, assault and im- conservatives and New Leftists line up, Leftist. "In the old days," he said, "I prison opponents, to deface and destroy inevitably, on opposite sides of the bar- was always battling a liberal-Old Left the structures, records and artifacts of ricades. Liberals hesitate, mill around united front. With the current setup, I the existing socal order. and in the end divide, the proportion usually find myself ganged up with the on each side being determined by the New Leftist against the liberal." My At the Barricades course of the struggle. friend is not alone in having noted a seeming affinity between New Left and The fundamental aim of conserva- Beware: Optimists Present! Right. tives is to preserve the inherited struc- In an article ("Confessions of a ture of civilization against the continu- Some persons on the American Right Right-Wing Liberal") appropriately ous threat of barbarism; meanwhile, if have been confused by the New Left's published in Ramparts (June 15 issue), possible, to improve that structure, but seeming adherence to a "libertarianism" Professor Murray N. Rothbard recounts first, to preserve. Fundamentally, con- similar to their own. But libertarianism how it came about that one who "twen- servatives criticize liberalism because does not define a distinctive political ty years ago was an extreme right- its practices weaken the institutional de- position. With respect to many rights wing Republican" is today happy writ- fense against barbarism and its ideas and liberties the Warren Court has ing for Ramparts and convinced that sap the will to resist barbarism. But been much more libertarian than any- "if we would salvage liberty this the real Left-the revolutionary, Com- one on the Right. In these matters of needs to be done by a counter-fusion munist Left, New as Old-is of a dif- rights and liberties, what differentiates of old right and new left. I doubt Pro- ferent order. Its specific objective is to conservatives from radicals and revolu- fessor Rothbard will comprehend the overthrow, to destroy what it calls tionaries, and Right from Left, is the chuckles with which Ramparts' sophis- "capitalism," the establishment," "the attitude toward economic rights, "prop- ticated readers will savor the naiveté status quo," "the consumer society"- erty rights," which do not appear on of his face-saving boast that "my basic all meaning the existing structure of any left-wing litany. political views have not changed by a such civilization as we have been able Actually, the new Left's libertarianism single iota in these two decades!" to manage. Of course the destruction is is a verbal façade. The Leninist Left It is not surprising that critics of in the name of a new and higher kind also declared that through the revolu- the status quo who differ among them- of society, but that does not alter its tion "proletarian democracy" would re- selves should make the same negative nihilistic relation to the civilized order place the fakery of a "bourgeois democ- points. The critics naturally select the we know and have. racy" which in fact is capitalist dicta- most vulnerable and distasteful traits It follows that conservative opposi- torship; and that proletarian democracy for emphasis. These negative coinci- tion to the revolutionary Left is stra- would evolve into the complete freedom dences may be of theoretical interest tegic and total, whereas its opposition to of Communist society. The outcome of but they do not have much political liberalism is tactical and contingent. New Left as of Old Left prescriptions significance. Politics cannot be under- (I am dealing here with political op- must in practice be totalitarian despot- stood by examining the abstract content position, not with philosophical differ- ism. "During the Terror [of the great of the formulas used. Everyone, after ences, which might be judged "total"- French Revolution]," observed George all, is for Liberty, Justice, Peace and i.e., entailing logical incompatibility- Sorel, "the men who spilt most blood Prosperity. in both cases.) There cannot be an were precisely those who had the great- The New Left teaches us by its acts honest united front between conserva- est desire to let their equals enjoy the the real meaning of its political doctrine. tives and New Leftists against liberals. golden age they had dreamt of, and who We have had a chance to observe em- As against the New Leftists, conserva- had the most sympathy with human bryonic New Left societies-soviets- tives should rather seek to join forces wretchedness: optimists, idealists and at Berkeley, Howard, Columbia, Rome, with liberals; should be ready, if neces- sensitive men, the greater desire they West Berlin, Chicago, the Sorbonne, sary, to defend liberals against New had for univeral happiness the more various draft boards and city halls. We Left attacks. inexorable they showed themselves." 690 NATIONAL REVIEW