ABSTRACT
According to the classical Marxian paradigm, revolutionary developments are nevertheless progressive – moving the majority into better position than they were before to achieve genuine liberation. So it seems that Marxism will increasingly be seen, and will increasingly see itself, not as the philosophy of liberation but as one component of such a philosophy. Can a movement for emancipation informed by a pluralistic philosophy of liberation such as the author suggests succeed in humanizing our species and thus fulfilling Marx's prophecy? The author introduces a subsidiary paradox: Most adherents to the philosophy of revolution, that is, Marxists, do not much believe in the Revolution anymore. Everyone knows that 1989 was the "Year of Revolution" in Eastern Europe. A genuine socialist revolution requires for its success both objective and subjective conditions. The 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe and the subsequent events in the Soviet Union, which have done so much to discredit Marxism, conform almost perfectly to the Marxian paradigm.
