It is so natural in trying to understand the phenomena of human life to have recourse to notions of historicism that the very fact of wanting to question them seems sacrilegious. Some people think that we can only understand communist society in its essence from a historical point of view, that is to say by considering the history of its formation. Authentic history, that goes without saying, and not the falsified history practiced by pro-communist historians and philosophers. According to them, the course of events, the way in which this society was constituted is sufficient to explain nature. p. 39

If the progressing rationality of advanced industrial society tends to liquidate, as an “irrational rest,” the disturbing elements of Time and Memory, it also tends to liquidate the disturbing rationality contained in this irrational rest. Recognition and relation to the past as present counteracts the functionalization of thought by and in the established reality. It militates against the closing of the universe of discourse and behavior it renders possible the development of concepts which destabilize and transcend the closed universe by comprehending it as historical universe. Confronted with the given society as object of its reflection, critical thought becomes historical consciousness as such, it is essentially judgment. Far from necessitating an indifferent relativism, it searches in the real history of man for the criteria of truth and falsehood, progress and regression. The mediation of the past with the present discovers the factors which made the facts, which determined the war of life, which established the masters and the servants; it projects the limits and the alternatives. When this critical consciousness speaks, it speaks “le langage de la connaissance” (Roland Barthes) which breaks open a closed universe of discourse and its petrified structure. The key terms of this language are not hypnotic nouns which evoke endlessly the same frozen predicates. They rather allow of an open development; they even unfold their content in contradictory predicates. The Communist Manifesto provides a classical example. Here the two key terms, Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, each “govern” contrary predicates. The “bourgeoisie” is the subject of technical progress, liberation, conquest of nature, creation of social wealth, and of the perversion and destruction of these achievements. Similarly, the "proletariat” carries the attributes of total oppression and of the total defeat of oppression. Such dialectical relation of opposites in and by the proposition is rendered possible by the recognition of the subject as an historical agent whose identity constitutes itself in and against its historical practice, in and against its social reality. The discourse develops and states the conflict between the thing and its function, and this conflict finds linguistic expression in sentences which join contradictory predicates in a logical unit—conceptual counterpart of the objective reality. In contrast to all Orwellian language, the contradiction is demonstrated, made explicit, explained, and denounced.

…[the] historical Stalinism (or simply Stalinism) is the form in which communist society was created in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Stalin, his lieutenants and all those who carried out their wishes and acted in accordance with their ideas and directives (the latter can be described as "historical Stalinists". Communist society is not the product of one man's will. It arose in obedience to objective social laws, which revealed themselves through activity of certain individuals, so that the form they took bears the mark of Stalin and the Stalinists. p. 337

Communism was not the crazy fantasy of a few fanatics, nor the result of human stupidity and baseness; it was a real, very real part of the history of the twentieth century, and we cannot understand this history of ours without understanding communism. We cannot get rid of this specter by saying it was just “human stupidity,” or “human corruptibility.” The specter is stronger than the spells we cast on it. It might come back to life.

For if the people join to their presence in the historical process critical thinking about that process, the threat of their emergence materializes in a revolution. Whether one calls this correct thinking 'revolutionary consciousness' or 'class consciousness,' it is an indispensable precondition of revolution. The dominant elites are so well aware of this fact that they instinctively use all means, including physical violence, to keep people from thinking.

It follows from what has just been said that communism is neither the product, nor the continuation, nor the outcome of capitalism. They have different origins. It is no coincidence that communism burst onto the scene of history, not in the highly developed West but in a Russia that was backward from a capitalist point of view and highly developed in terms of community phenomena. : centralized and powerful state apparatus, important class of civil servants, masses accustomed to submitting to power, peasant community. By liquidating the weakened classes of landowners and the not yet solid classes of capitalists, the October revolutions were to sweep away the terrain of community relations. It is also not by chance that communism has attracted countries with weak capitalist development. p. 14-16

Communist society arose in Russia in full conformity with the laws of evolution and not as a chance exception. The October Revolution simply cleared the way for a trend that had already been present in Russia for centuries. p. 153

The roots of communism existed and exist, in one form or another, in the most diverse societies. They also existed in pre-revolutionary Russia. They exist today in Western countries. Without them, no large-scale or even slightly developed society is conceivable. They represent social phenomena that I would describe as “community phenomena”. These only become dominant and can generate a specific type of communist society - or "real socialism" - under very specific conditions. (…) p. 14-16

Millions of people participated in the historical process that gave birth to the communist society of the Soviet Union. These people have performed billions of different actions. They accomplished them in their own interest. They acted according to the laws of community conduct and not only according to the laws of history, which do not intervene in the conduct of individuals. Some of these actions worked in favor of the new society, the other against. Sometimes the same actions worked either in favor of this society or against it. The supporters of the new societies have not always necessarily acted for it, and conversely its adversaries have not always harmed it. The revolutionaries have done a lot against the revolution and the counter-revolutionaries a lot in its favor, without realizing it. p. 41

There are cases - perhaps mine is among them - where this discovery can be particularly helpful. Much of my life, probably most of my conscious life, was devoted to a hope which has been plainly disappointed, and to a cause which has plainly failed: the communism initiated by the October Revolution. But there is nothing which can sharpen the historian's mind like defeat.

Imported from the USSR, the communist ideology justified the assault against civil society, against political and economic pluralism; it justified the annihilation of the democratic parties, the destruction of the free market, extermination by assassination, deportations, forced labor, and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of people. Behind the mask of "socialist humanism" lay concealed the most profound contempt for human beings as individuals.

For in the last analysis it is human consciousness which is the subject matter of history.

Communism arises in various ways. In Russia, it was the result of the crash following the First World War, the revolution and the civil war. It was brought to Eastern European countries by the Soviet army, victorious over Nazi Germany. But whatever the diversity of historical paths it takes in this or that corner of the planet, communism has this particularity in that it is not born from nothing and is not completely foreign to the country where it is established. (…) p. 14-16

Historical judgment focuses attention on phenomena from which we must above all abstract ourselves if we want to understand what this new society born in a given historical context really is. The historical process is also, of course, a reality, but it is a reality which disappears into the past. The new society which has matured within him quickly got rid of a historical covering which encumbered it and had become foreign to him. It constitutes another historical environment more in keeping with its nature. Sociological reality is designed to remain. She is looking to the future. p. 41