The author starts out from the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and states that this is only part of the general push of the left in the background. The essential cause of that in his view, is the failure of the left to give a progressive response to the process of transnationalisation and that it remained within the national framework and became conservative. He separately deals with the topical dilemmas of the EC, the strategy of "deepening" and "broadening" which has a sensitive impact on Eastern and Central Europe. He outlines the duties of the left wing and stresses the dangers of sticking to "ouvrierism" (mystification of the workers) and at the same time, he terms as a prime goal, the search for the methods of an offensive against the extreme right.