This text was the contribution of Ernest Mandel to a 1978 commemorative colloquium for the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885 – 1977) and was first published in 1980.ⁱ In this article Mandel uses categories developed by Bloch, such as the Not-Yet and Real Possible, to examine the need of incorporating notions of the future in socialist thought.

This text was originally published in 1977 in Inprecor, the French language journal of the Fourth International. Drafted by Mandel, it was adopted by what was then the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. The text was intended as a contribution to a debate in the Fourth International over the issue of Socialist Democracy in the run up the Eleventh World Congress of the Fourth International (1979).

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