Where does Donald Trump’s victory leave (whatever remains of) the left? In 1922, when the Bolsheviks had to retreat to the “New Economic Policy,” allowing much wider scope for the market and private property, Lenin wrote a short text, “On Ascending a High Mountain.” Like the climber who falls back to the zero point after his first attempt to reach a new peak, he argued, the revolutionary must be prepared to retreat opportunistically without betraying his fidelity to the cause: “Communists … who preserve their strength and flexibility ‘to begin from the beginning’ over and over again in approaching an extremely difficult task, are not doomed.”
This was Lenin at his Beckettian best, foreshadowing the line from Worstward Ho: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” And such an approach is indeed what is called for by our moment, when communism is needed more than ever as the only way to confront the challenges we face (ecology, war, artificial intelligence)—but when whatever remains of the left is less and less able to mobilize people around a viable alternative.
With Trump’s victory, the left reached its zero point.