January 23, 2026 From Instinct to Theory: A Left in Search of Itself ( https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/23/from-instinct-to-theory-a-left-in-search-of-itself/ ) Biljana Vankovska ( https://www.counterpunch.org/author/bljvnkv2929/ ) ( https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/23/from-instinct-to-theory-a-left-in-search-of-itself/print/ ) The author as a young Pioneer. Having spent roughly half my life in a socialist system (with Yugoslav characteristics), I am nonetheless struck by how few consistent leftists remain today in my region. Honestly, I even struggle to define myself — beyond the broad label of a leftist. The events that unfolded in my (now defunct) homeland were of such magnitude that there was barely any space left for ideological debate. Burdened by war, hatred, fear, and plunder, we slipped almost unnoticed into the phase euphemistically called “transition.” According to our Western mentors (who were quick to brand us barbarians for a war they themselves had largely helped ignite) it was supposed to lead us to “real democracy.” I am well aware of dissidents (mostly Soviet, but also from other former socialist countries in Europe) who spent their lives wandering between systems: disillusioned with socialism and its distortions, they went West in search of genuine freedom, only to return even more disenchanted. I was too young to play the role of a dissident. And to be honest, as a descendant of the working class, someone who, thanks to equal opportunities and personal ability, was able to climb the ladder into academic life, I felt no disappointment with socialism. My father, Ljube Vankovski was an autodidact without formal higher education; he worked in a printing house with lungs full of lead fumes. But he read philosophy, wrote poetry, and was politically active to the extent that he was briefly arrested by the secret police for allegedly spreading “hostile propaganda.” It was a traumatic experience for our family. He was soon released without charges. A file remained, but I never sought to see it; I never wanted to know who had denounced him. While I was studying law and reciting my lessons on Yugoslavia’s system of self-management and delegated assemblies, my father who had practical experience as a workers’ representative in the city council, would tell me bluntly: “This won’t work. This dysfunctional system will collapse.” I didn’t believe him. My textbooks insisted that Yugoslavia was closest to the ideal of the Paris Commune, a socialism with a human face. When Marshal Tito was at the height of his international fame, touring the world aboard the Galeb , greeted with grand ceremonies from North Korea to who knows where, he would grumble: “Instead of handling things at home, he’s traveling the world.” When Tito died, I genuinely mourned him. Together with my fellow students, and without any coertion, I went to pay my respects at the House of Flowers, his final resting place. My father grumbled again, as if sensing that something terrible was coming. He died a few years after Tito and did not live to see his predictions come true (although I believe even he would have been shocked by the scale of violence and hatred that spread through the country like wildfire). Yet he never turned against Marxism, which he studied independently, far beyond school textbooks. I never heard my parents utter a single bitter word about their lives as members of the working class, let alone claim that capitalism was the answer to the flaws of Yugoslav socialism. From today’s perspective, I think they were wise enough to see that the class which claimed to represent the proletariat as a whole had in fact drifted away from working people and become a socialist bourgeoisie. They criticized the system and the caste that betrayed the socialist ideal in which they had seen a genuinely emancipatory future for their children. The author with her father, Ljube Vankovski. Raised in the spirit of Yugoslavism and socialism, and with the sincerity and naivety of a child, I was attached to them. You can imagine what the double loss of 1991 meant. Independent Macedonia was neither truly independent nor socially just. Built on national self-determination and refusal to participate in wars (“oasis of peace”), but simultaneously on criminal privatization, the destructive recipes of the Washington Consensus, and similar policies, Macedonia lost everything it had built over previous decades. Every new step toward so-called Europeanization meant de-Macedonization, the loss of national and human dignity and the right to be at home in one’s own country. Worst of all, a new class of overnight tycoons emerged, i.e. comprador elite enriched through the theft of collective wealth; the population was pauperized, humiliated, and made dependent on crumbs thrown from above. In these conditions grew a generation that called itself “the children of transition”; a generation that neither experienced socialism nor witnessed any genuine democratic progress. Those older people like myself (“fossils” of the old system, now demonized and erased from collective memory), naturally gravitate toward them, forming a fragile but existing ground for leftist ideas and praxis. In the former Yugoslavia, we lived much better and freer (often on credit and IMF loans, to be honest) than people in the rest of the Eastern Bloc. Understandably, their experiences differed from ours. We didn’t even have a “headquarters” in Moscow or membership in the Warsaw Pact. Yet after all the devastation brought by capitalism, I somehow hoped that memories of socialism would converge. I wrongly assumed that at least some nostalgia, if not a leftist ideology, had survived. I was proven wrong. At a gathering of colleagues from Central and Eastern Europe, I made no secret of being a leftist, nor of seeing Chinese socialism as an inspiration—not a model, but a stimulus. My interlocutors responded with confusion, and some with outright hostility toward the very mention of socialism. One colleague jokingly (yet kindly) whispered that he hadn’t seen a living communist in years (we were in Beijing!). The greatest understanding came from a Greek colleague, who congratulated me on the courage to say what others avoided and recognized me as ideologically close. Let me stress this irony: someone who never lived under socialism felt closer to me than some who had. The “Cold War 2.0” is shifting from geopolitical rivalry into ideological intolerance. Fascist tendencies no longer hide. Socialist and communist parties are being banned, more or less violently in the ‘democratic West’. The furthest left position still tolerated is social democracy, which itself increasingly drifts toward liberalism. Under these conditions, it becomes clear that we will learn more about socialism and leftist struggle from the so-called Third World or Global South, especially from countries suffering under U.S. imperialism, such as Venezuela, Cuba, parts of India, even Vietnam. Leftism is in decline not only due to external pressure and opportunism, but also because of ignorance and intellectual laziness. Ah, yes! And the betrayal of the so-called Western Marxists that we once admired (something that Gabriel Rockhill deconstructed brilliantly). For those of us at a more mature age, this means taking two steps back in order to move one forward. For younger generations who are already “walking the walk,” it is a matter of basic education rather than instinct. We must return to theory we once took for granted and failed to respect. Above all, we must study and learn from anti-colonial critique. What we need is a global “party school” of socialism. How to build socialism is another and more difficult story. But without theoretical grounding and a clear understanding of the world, we cannot hope to change it. Once again, we face the old dilemmas: is socialism possible in one country, or does it require a global revolution? On Chinese TV, the popular anchor asks her guest: is China truly (or still) a socialist country. In the dominant narrative born in the West, Cuba and Venezuela are presented as proof that socialism doesn’t work, without acknowledging the heroism of their societies in resisting decades of ruthless imperial sanctions. It is time to relearn Marxism, socialism, and leftist struggles from around the world; to draw lessons from past and present fights against oppression; and to resist the proto-fascist capitalism that once again threatens our lives and communities. Too many have lost their moral and ideological compass, shaped by the very systems they seek to challenge. Let us reclaim our ideas, our knowledge, and our courage – and imagine, together, a truly emancipatory future.
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