A Theory Devoured by Thought 419without the socialization of the means of production, as if it were merely
a matter for negotiation.’
Where the programme called for the development of the personality,
he wrote, ‘that is 1) a bad bourgeois concept; 2) it is not a constant.’^31
However, the article was never written. If it never progressed beyond
the note stage, this is probably because the matter was delicate enough
for Adorno to think it prudent to consult Horkheimer. Doubtless he
was mindful of Horkheimer’s strictures on Habermas’s foray into pol-
itics. A few days after the formation of the Grand Coalition, he wrote
to Horkheimer that he was having second thoughts: ‘If anyone attacks
the SPD today – and that is what it would amount to, however one
formulated one’s comments – that would be grist to the mill of every-
one who wants to shake the already frail pillars of democracy....
I would not wish to contribute to the same sort of disaster that people
brought about in an earlier age when they coined the slogan of social
fascism.’ Adorno declared that he agreed with intellectuals who were
close to him and Horkheimer who believed that, in view of the possible
threat to democracy from the Grand Coalition, it was time to speak
out in public. ‘Only an extremely acute, critical process of self-reflection
can help the SPD not to wear itself out in this alliance.’ Somewhat self-
critically, Adorno confessed to his friend in Montagnola that he was
unsure of his own political judgement in this situation. On the one
hand, he saw the risk that the SPD would simply be co-opted into a
conservative agenda. ‘On the other hand, I regard the Grand Coalition
as a real opportunity for a transition to a two-party system of the kind
that you envisage, and this in turn would lead to the elimination of the
NPD which despite all reassurances I take as seriously as you.’^32 Adorno
decided to give Horkheimer a casting vote, and, when Horkheimer
advised against it, he abandoned the plan for the Kursbuch article.
Nevertheless, two years later he saw no reason to revise his prin-
cipled critique of the SPD programme. In November 1968, he wrote to
Günter Grass that with their new programme the Social Democrats
were in the process ‘of forswearing all the theoretical ideas that had
ever inspired them’. However, it was not possible, he thought, to crit-
icize them because politically there was no alternative. To the left of
the SPD there were only anarchist activists or groups subservient to
Moscow ‘who were even prepared to defend the ghastly invasion of
Czechoslovakia’.^33
Adorno’s decision not to proceed with the article resulted only partly
from deference to Horkheimer’s opinion. In addition, Adorno found
himself increasingly under pressure from left-wing groups, and he feared
that he might end up being used for the political purposes of others.^34 In
his letter to Enzensberger, saying he could not write the piece, Adorno
blames the lack of time. He was busy working on Negative Dialectics
and a variety of other publications. ‘I was completely exhausted and
have not picked up a pen in the entire five weeks of vacation in the