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PARTISAN REVIEW
But in
Crises of the R epu blic,
aft er reitera ting her belief tha t coll ecti ve
ownership is a contradi ction in terms, she confl a ted workers' manage–
ment and the politi cal role of the council s:
In Yugoslavia we have the "syslem of self-management" in lhe
faclOries, a new version of the o ld "workers' councils," which,
incidentall y, also never became part of orthodox socia lisl or com–
muni sl doctrine-despile Lenin 's "all power
lo
the
soviets."
Thus, the " fa tal mi stake" of mixin g economi cs and po litics seems not
so fa tal after all , and once again the absolute purity of the politi ca l
proves an unworkabl e myth . Her search for an hi stori cal embodiment
of Jaspers's "extreme situa ti on " in whi ch " unconditi on al deeds" were
committed was ultima tely fruitl ess.
With all of these failings, it mi ght seem as if the o bj ect o f all the
recent eulogizing may well be as forgotten in a few years as Alfred
Bauml er or Carl Schmitt is today. Even the tempered admira ti on of
Margaret Canovan may seem prema ture when Hannah Arendt's ro le as
a la tter-day politi cal existentialist is put in its proper perspecti ve. And
yet, although the burden of my argument would seem to endorse thi s
predi ction , my intuition is tha t she will have a somewha t hi gher
reputa tion among future intell ectual hi storians than her predecesso rs
now enjoy. First, becau se of her unerring instinct for the iss ues tha t
excite public controversy, her place is secure in any hi story of the ew
York intellectual community over the last quarter-century. T he fu ror
over the Ei chmann book alone justifi es her centrality in any account of
the intell ectual migrati on of Central European Jews to Ameri ca, as has
in fact been recognized in H . Stuart Hughes' recent
The Sea Change.
She will also have an inevitable role in any hi story of Co ld War
ideology because of h er seminal role in establishing the ca tegory of
totalitarianism to cover systems of both the left and right. And
paradoxicall y, she will also have to be included in accounts of the New
Left for her theoretical legitima ti on of its political existenti a list
impul se, even though its aes theti ciza tion of politics ultima tely led to
an excess she came
to
deplore.
Secondl y, the type of political theorizing in whi ch she engaged
will continue to serve for many as a welcome bulwa rk aga inst the
engulfing tide of political science, as well as a reminder tha t the
political need not be reduced to the questi on "who governs?" Although
it is ques tionable to identify the free interacti on H annah Arendt
applauded with some ideal political community and damn the rest as
society (just as it is inaccura te to condemn all sociology as anti–
interactionist ), there is real value in arguing tha t wherever one may
