The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century

Whether the skill of his wife's translation or not, this man wrote in this work some of the best historical prose I've ever read. A profundity on every other page in a field that's been exhausted by the historical profession.

Furet says, in the preface to this book, that "The passing of an illusion" "is not a history of Communism, even less a history of the Soviet Union; it is a history of the illusion of Communism during the time in which the USSR lent it consistency and vitality". In my opinion, this book tells us a story, the story of a myth. That myth is no other that the Communist myth, that was supposed to bring a world of peace and freedom, and instead only brought more chains to those who chose to follow it. The October revolution was thought to be the continuation of the French Revolution, a new revolution that would finish the task the other couldn`t complete. Many continued to believe so even after it was fairly evident that that wasn't the case: the dictatorship of the proletariat had turned into arbitrary rule of the proletariat by a few. Of course, it was much easier to believe in the Communist myth living far away from the URSS than in that country, having to deal with the reality of oppression. Furet points out how ingeniously the URSS managed to retain its universalistic appeal even after Stalin imposed the doctrine of "socialism in one state". He also mentions the intelligent identification that the URSS tried to make between Communism and Anti-Fascism, and the realization that "Communism had to conceal its reality in order to remain an 'idea' ". Many intellectuals were almost eager to be mislead: they hated Fascism so much that they didn`t wait much to "establish a subjective connection between Communism and liberty". "The passing of an illusion" is rather long, but it is more than worth your time and effort. Even though it doesn`t exhaust the subject, it allows the reader to learn a lot about it... Moreover, it was written by François Furet (1927-1997), a well-known French historian that somehow managed to convey wonderfully how important the theme was to him. In his own words, "I have a biographical connection with my subject: in my youth, I experienced the passing of an illusion as a Communist between 1949 and 1956. My subject is thus inseparable from my existence, and I experienced firsthand the illusion that I am attempting to trace back to the time in which it was most widespread". Why did the myth persist for so long, and how did it finally fall?. The author examines these questions, and finds some answers that I consider very interesting. However, those answers are quite long, so instead of repeating them I advice you to read this book :) On the whole, I recommend "The passing of an illusion" to all those who want to understand our present. Believe it or not, doing so is impossible without understanding the communist myth and its evolution. Ideas are important, and the impact of Communism over our century is just another proof of that... Belen Alcat

Although not an easy book to read, this is history at its best. It is the story of the blindness of too many in the West to what Communisim was about, as written by an erudite and wise man.

This book is a great book, but it is NOT a layman book. I read this for my graduate class in political science, and it was used as the theotical backbone for the class. The sentence structure is a little bit too hard to read at first, but the biggest obstacle, I think, is rather the concepts a person needs to know before he or she can really understand the book.If you do not understand the book, then may be you are not part of the intended audience of it anyway.

What do Saint-Simon, Szyszko, Reyes, Schafer, and Marx all have in common? According to "The Passing of an Illusion," by Francois Furet, they were all the annointed prophets of the deadly cult of socialism (the deceitfully benign "nom de plume" of communism), which proved itself hostile to the most basic notions of individuality and freedom. These men provided the idealogical cornerstone for the bloody reign of Lenin and Stalin, and fueled the egoism and violence of dozens of more minor dictators and rebels throughout the last half of the Twentieth Century. Who better to expose the truth that our history books will not reveal than a former priest of the Red Religion? As a young man, Furet, a Jewish Creole of Haitian descent, was constantly excluded from social interactions by his French bourgeois peers for no other reason than his heritage. Understandably then, it was the revolutionary writings of the Polish Szyszko and the Belgian Schafer (famous for their simultaneous calls for the liberation of all nations subjugated by the European colonial powers)which first attracted Furet. As he matured, Reyes' ephemeral "Notes on a Libido Theory of Value" became more to Furet's liking, and his political activities in support of a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in France grew ever more intense. Thirty years later, and after a story of conversion that absolutely MUST BE READ TO BE BELIEVED, Francois Furet has returned to the world of the rational, and brings to us as his offering of penitence this ecyclopedic survey of the diabolical philosophy of communism in Europe. This book should be mandatory reading for every student and amator of political science in America, where the marxian discipline--sadly--rages on in the halls of some of our greatest centers of learning.