ABSTRACT
The end of the eighteenth century marks the dividing line between the immense expanse of essentially static societies and the brief period during which public life has become increasingly dominated by fervent expectations of a better future. Such is the history—the short history—of hope as apolitical and social force; such the justification of entitling an analysis of our age 'History and Hope'. Marxism transmuted the ideals of human progress into a doctrine of violence. It proclaimed a new vision of reality in politics and history, reducing all morality to underlying economic necessities. The image of a mechanical process of history leading to the establishment of socialism could never inspire revolutionary passion. But Marxism does inspire powerful passions. The secret of this contradiction lies in the fact that the Marxist conception of history does not eliminate—as it pretends to do—the moral ideals of progress, but absorbs them into its vision of this process.
