haps Mitterrand thought that he couldnwmt a few years until the sixty-eight-yearoldnde Gaulle vanished and the traditionalnpolitical forces re-emerged.” Indeed,nMitterrand lost his seat in the NationalnAssembly but soon reappeared,nrunning as de Gaulle’s main opponent innthe 1965 presidential election. A yearnlater, Le Monde’s editor wrote, “One doesnnot believe in his sincerity so much asnhis agility.”nThe same writer nonetheless addednthat “Francois Mitterrand, unlike mostnpoliticians, is worth more than he appears.”nThe actual Mitterrand excels thenfictional one Mitterrand celebrates butnprudentiy Ms to embody. His dealingsnwith Marxism and the Communist Partynillustrate this. In a 1969 book, Mitterrandn”openly embraced Marxist concepts,nthough he admitted that he had nevernmade a detailed study of Marx.” That aversionnof the eyes undoubtedly made embracingnthe ideology less repugnant. Henaccepted Marx’s social/economic determinismnbut rejected “proletarian” dictatorship:n”We are here to conquernpower, but only after we have won overnthe minds of our fellow citizens.” Henwants democracy as a means and notnonly as a perpetually deferred end. Marxnand Lenin scorn such “bourgeois formalism,”nand neither address the unconvincednas “fellow citizens.” Marxism ofnthe Mitterrand variety retains a place forncivility.nIt also cares for individuality. MacShanenquotes his comment on the prison camp;n”Being obliged to live with a mass ofnpeople, one gets to know solitude.”nPolitically, this makes liberty, not equality,n”the great problem on the road tonSocialism.” In a passage from his editedndiary/notebook, The Wheat and the Chaffn(Seaver Books; New York; 1982), Mitterrandninsists that socialism must “proven… it has returned to the sources, its ownnsources, that it is the daughter of the revolutionsnwhere one swore ‘freedom orndeath’ and kept one’s word.” A Marxistnwould complain that these were bourgeoisnrevolutions. To his lasting creditnand discredit, Mitterrand is not listeningn30inChronicles of CulturenCredit, because no Marxist could writenthat “the worst tyranny is that of thenspirit,” which will “lie in wait for its preynuntil the end of time.” Discredit, becausenhe prefers, or pretends, to ignore thatnthe communists’ willingness to temporizenaims at a dictatorship presented lyinglyn(“dialectically”) as a means to effect then”withering away” of the state. Moreover,nafter deploring the solitude of mass-lifenand spiritual tyranny, he can stumbleninto this enumeration of the kinds ofn”dignity and responsibility” freedomnshould serve: “abolition of the deathnpenalty; giving women control of theirnown personal destiny, i.e., contraceptionnand abortion; divorce by mutual consent;nthe right to vote at age 18, and sonon.” “Bourgeois” in the best sense, he isnalso “bourgeois” in the worst sense.n”Bourgeois” socialism can more easilynanger Marxists than it does conservatives.nMacShane plausibly suggests that afternMitterrand took over direction of thenSocialist Party in 1971 the ensuing alliancenwith George Marchais’s CommunistnParty was a marriage of conveniencenand was understood as such by bothnpartners. The dissolution of this “Unionnof the Left” came in September of 1977;nMitterrand has su^ested that Marchaisnacted in response to the Soviet positionntaken that January condemning such alliances.nThe conservative argument thatna Socialist government would be a Trojannhorse lost some of its plausibility. This,nalong with President Giscard’s blunders,nFrance’s high unemployment, and Mitterrand’snappeal to the Gaullist traditionnyielded a victory by three-and-one-halfnpercentage points in the 1981 election.nMacShane surveys the first month ofnthe Mitterrand presidency, citing a 27npercent increase in public spending, thennnnationalization of 39 banks (95 percentnof French bank fiinds are now under statencontrol, up from 70 percent), and thennationalization of an additional 14 percentnof industry, bringing the total to 32npercent He wrote the book too early tonmention the subsequent violent disordersnin Paris as unemployment remained highnand inflation got worse. MacShane losesnthe chance to predict trouble by misunderstandingna conversation Mitterrandnhad with Henry Kissinger late inn1975. Kissinger, MacShane writes, iudulgednin an “anti-Communist tirade”nthat was “circular” and “dialecticallynpointless.” As Mitterrand himself recountsnit in The Wheat and the Chaff,nwhat Kissinger had to say was quitenpointed indeed. Why nationalize industry,nhe asked, when nationalizingnwould only cause your head of state tonbe blamed for every economic problem?nThe socialist program would make thenFrench less governable than ever.nMitterrand replied that he sincerelynwanted the state to wither away, not byndictatorship but by ever-increasing decentralizationnand “autogestion”—^literally,nself-direction or self-rule, bothnpolitical and economic. He concludesnhis book by claiming that technology,nfer from requiring increased hierarchy,ncan constitute “the decisive instrumentnof liberation” if a genuinely socialist ethosnguides it. “Data processing, biology, nuclearnphysics: The great fields of knowledgenare open to conquistadors settingnout in the name of democracy.” It makesnone think that the “political odyssey”nMacShane describes has been undertakennby a Ulysses who rides a horse namednRocinante.nUnlike MacShane, Mitterrand seesnKissinger’s point and wishes he had morentime to consider it. He is a man with antaste for thinking but without the leisurenfor sustained thought. This injures himnmore tWn it would injure a conservativenor moderate politician because, as andemocratic socialist, he cannot refer tona well-established social and politicalntradition that has, so to speak, done anmeasure of thinking for him. (Democra-n