p In the minds of the New Left’s members Utopianism appears as a manifestation of historical initiative suited to modern social conditions, an essential condition of revolutionary creativity and a prerequisite for the formation of a new subject of the historical process. "An Utopian conception? It has been the great, real, transcending force, the ’idee neuve’, in the first powerful rebellion against the whole of the existing society; the rebellion for the total trans valuation of values, for qualitatively different ways of life: the May rebellion in France.”  [144•**  The Utopianism of the radical Left is presented here as a mystifying form for solving the problem of subjectivism, the free activity of the subject of historical creativity in the context of contemporary capitalist society.

p The question of the subject’s creative activity, his freedom and its correlation with necessity acquires major significance 145 during historical epochs directly preceding revolutionary change, and also during periods of actual change. For instance, the question of the conditions and limits of man’s activity (admittedly in the plane of active reasoning, for, as Marx pointed out, "idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such"  [145•* ) was formulated by classical German philosophy which provided the theoretical foundation for bourgeois revolution.

p For radicals of all complexions this question, just as the question of historical initiative, is one of primary importance today. Moreover, for those among them who are active in industrially underdeveloped countries, the interrelation of the subject and historical necessity is regarded first and foremost as a question of compensation for the absence of the material and technical preconditions of historical advance by activity of the masses. In the industrially developed countries of the West the radical Left sees the main issue to be the -need to fan the will to work towards change, to stop men being conformist in a world where the essential objective prerequisites for change are already to hand.

p In this connection elements of existentialism of the Camus and Sartre mould come very clearly to the fore in the ideology of the New Left, elements which foreshadow the transition from positivist objectivism, which confirms the state of affairs in "developed industrial society", to subjectivism with an existentialist flavour as a reaction to the accepted status quo and a radical attempt to change it. The secret of this transition lies in the fact that for Marcuse social reality, being “one-dimensional” and only in that sense “solid”, at the same time shows itself to be plastic in character. In his One-Dimensional Man where he starts coming round to the opinion that "advanced industrial society is capable of containing qualitative change for the foreseeable future.”  [145•**  Marcuse nevertheless regards social reality as something potentially plastic, "plastic in itself" so to speak. If the social critic doubts anything, it is not the plastic character of social matter so much as the possibility of bringing that plasticity 146 to fruition, since he negates the presence of a subject capable of apprehending his freedom and lending that social reality a qualitatively different form.

p In Marcuse’s latest works (from End of Utopia to An Essay on Liberation) where he evolves the concept of Utopia discussed earlier and where he does after all light upon social forces ready to develop the "will for change", such as the “outsiders”, students and intellectuals, the plasticity of social reality is already presented as "plasticity in itself". By this time even positivist objectivism requires existentialist subjectivism not only to supplement itself but also as a means of deciphering its own radical-critical content.

p The fact that subjectivism developing into political voluntarism grows up thanks to the recognition and absolutisation of the plasticity of reality is borne out so to speak by the Maoist variant of subjectivism which has much in common with Marcuse’s conception.  [146•* 

p Subjectivism of the radical Left based on the interpretation of freedom as a property of absolute activity originally intrinsic to the subject differs fundamentally from the Marxist conception of the social activity of the subject in so far as historical creativity is regarded as determined by the material conditions of its functioning. However, bearing in mind the historically determined ambivalent social role of existentialist subjectivism it is quite in place to ask: does it not play a certain positive role in some circumstances, as was the case with Sartre’s conception of freedom under nazi occupation? "There is no doubt that Sartre’s emphasis on the possibility for every individual of acting against the occupying forces possessed major progressive importance.... German and French official propaganda put out by the collaborateurs tried to convince people that the objective conditions in which routed France found itself made resistance to the enemy quite futile. Of course this was a false idea for sober assessment of the real strength of the anti-fascist camp as a whole and the potential of the French people for resistance refuted the idea.... The majority of the French, who 147 had no scientific understanding of the direction of the historical process taken as a whole and the contemporary correlation of class and other social forces, were of the opinion that it was possible to wage a struggle against the invaders, only provided the importance of objective factors were scorned and men believed in the omnipotence of free will that triumphs over determinism. In so far as those people might have felt they needed philosophical substantiation for their profound conviction, they could find the same in Sartre’s teaching... .”  [147•* 

p Is not history repeating itself to some extent today? Does not radical subjectivism, taken up with Sartre’s conception of freedom, at times perform the function of psychological incentive for the protest movement in the conditions of developed capitalist society, where ideologists of neocapitalist “integration” endeavour to introduce into social consciousness the idea that capitalism is unshakeable, that social reality is functional, inflexible, non-plastic, and that all struggle against the monopolies and the military-industrial complex is useless, where the transcendental function of the imagination is becoming atrophied and where the latter becomes a machine for individual and team reproduction of the given world?

To the extent that the call for qualitative change in social reality corresponds in principle with the presence within capitalist society of the essential objective preconditions for such change, to the extent that the representative of the radical mass, antagonistically disposed towards the establishment but as a result of specific historical circumstances not yet prepared for the transition to the standpoint of Marxism, can find in subjectivism a la Sartre, just as in the Marcusian thesis of the "possibility of the impossible", specific ideological or theoretical grounds for political nonconformism and struggle against state-monopoly capitalism, the call for action based on false theoretical premises can indeed play the part of incentive. Yet it should be borne in mind that radical subjectivism also has another side to it. The existentialist subjectivist conception produces the above-mentioned impact 148 only in so far as it is superimposed onto a specific spontaneously evolving concept peculiar to the rank-and-file members of the protest movement with regard to the world and their place in it, onto an idea which outwardly contradicts reality or ignorance of the kind which at times makes man active in his fearlessness vis-a-vis danger, but which can disarm and disorientate him when real circumstances reveal to him the illusory character of his freedom. Practical action thus emerges as a consequence of the lack of freedom to which the characters in the historical drama are subject. Therefore the interaction of the theoretical conceptions put forward by the radical Left and the spontaneous consciousness of those directly involved in the protest movement lends the appeals to turn Utopianism into an imperative of socio-political action a limited character.