“This is especially true because the interwar years were a time of a polarizing political spectrum: the Right became more radical, the Left became more radical the liberal center ‘melted into air’ (to use Marx’s phrase).” How did ‘left’ and ‘right’ enter American politics?Īccording to Michael Kazin, a professor of U.S. “It’s very difficult to talk about the 1920s and 1930s in Europe without continually invoking ‘Right’ and ‘Left,'” writes Shore. In the interwar years, the terms left and right were used all over Europe as people wrestled with the politics of nation and class. But the definitions were fluid, always shifting in relation to the ever-changing party line. Leaning toward the left generally meant embracing a radical international workers revolution, and leaning to the right generally meant adopting some sort of national sentiment. People who broke from the Communist party line were described by opponents as left-wing or right-wing deviationists, especially during the Stalinist era.
They viewed it as a necessary step in the historical process that would eventually lead to communism.įor them, left and right took on newly specific meanings. They were intensely conscious about carrying out its legacy - and raising it to a higher level,” Marci Shore, a professor of European cultural and intellectual history at Yale University, told TIME in an email. “The Bolsheviks were fascinated by the French Revolution.
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