[FRA:] Marcuse on Rudolf Bahro: "Protosocialism and Late Capitalism"

[Javier Castro]

Hello all,

I am hoping some of you can help me understand Herbert Marcuse's analysis
of Rudolf Bahro's *The Alternative in Eastern Europe, *as he writes in
"Protosocialism
and Late Capitalism"<http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/70spubs/Marcuse1979Bahro.pdf>(1978/1980).

I am specifically interested in Marcuse's take on Bahro's proposal for a
political transition away from protosocialism (and late capital).  Bahro
has a fairly authoritarian scheme for doing this: he calls for a "League of
Communists" that is to rule over the people, resist the strength of their
"compensatory interests," and instruct them in the ways of emancipation.
 As Marcuse notes at the close of the section reviewing Bahro's political
method for the transition, it is quite close to the dictatorial approaches
favored by Plato and Rousseau (the people must be forced to be free).

Now my main question is whether Marcuse himself *agrees *with Bahro's
proposals.  Marcuse is somewhat infamous for his periodic flirtation with
the idea of an intellectual dictatorship (*One-Dimensional Man, *"The End
of Utopia"/"The Problem of Violence and the Radical Opposition,"
"Repressive Tolerance," elsewhere...), such that it is not beyond the realm
of possibility that he does in fact embrace Bahro's take.  However, I for
some reason had come to think that by the end of his life, he had
definitively rejected this option--though the essay in question raises the
matter again.  As I've said, it's not immediately clear to me from his
argumentation in "Protosocialism" whether he holds a resort to such methods
in a critical light or not.

I appreciate your help in this matter.

Regards,
Javier