ABSTRACT

In any event, the vanishing of the Utopia, the retreat from blithe and unmitigated optimism, the erosion of the sense of mission and of the faith in having all the answers—these are all very much in line with what has typically happened to universalist messianic creeds in other places and at other times. Paradoxically, the erosion of ideology in its turn also exacts a price. In a beautifully reasoned article, Alexander George found that "one of the functions of ideology generally in decisionmaking is to help policymakers cope with critical uncertainties that stem from the well-known 'cognitive limits' on rationality." After the Leninists seized power in 1917, they waited impatiently for revolutions abroad to occur, in Germany—so as to bail out the embattled, weak, and awkward Soviet Russian regime. But wherever it was attempted, revolution failed, whether it was in Hungary or in Berlin or in Bavaria.