When I tell people I’m interested in the politics of forgiveness, that often surprises them: the idea sounds bad and moralistic. I invite them to consider that the whole point of a revolution is to start over. The people who will change the world must start in this one — a system that rewards selfishness and cruelty. Accepting people despite their past harms is a fundamental part of building a new society.

Some socialists say that the left doesn’t need ethics. Marx and Engels wrote that Communism would end morality: ‘Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality.’ But Marx also said that if Communism won, life would follow different rules: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ What’s that, if not a description of a better society? In The German Ideology, Marx says this about revolutions: in them, we rid ourselves of ‘all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.’ People change; without that possibility, you couldn’t have socialism.

When is forgiveness possible?

When writing about forgiveness, there are three big ideas that matter most to me. First, forgiveness is an act done by victims — not their friends, and definitely not the state. The victim must achieve justice. Afterwards, you ask them if they want to forgive: in a situation of ongoing harm, asking a victim isn’t an act of generosity; it’s cruel. 

Or imagine that the violence is ongoing. If so, then it’s still too soon to discuss forgiveness. Think of the pressure that women so often suffer to forgive their tormentors. The only circumstances, I argue, under which you can reasonably pose that question is after a transformation in both people’s lives. If the man responsible is chastened, repentant, open in telling the victim he was wrong, and serious about doing work to help the victim heal, only then is the choice of forgiveness really posed. Even then, it should be a genuine choice, with no expectation on the survivor to forgive.

The best known example of political forgiveness is South Africa after apartheid — there was a political revolution but not a social one. Without a political revolution, people were asked to forgive too soon. The members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission toned down their criticisms of the old order, treating apartheid as a system of individual violence. What was wrong was the killing and torture of activists, along with the murder of Steve Biko and  other anti-apartheid campaigners. 

The Commissioners couldn’t address economic privilege. The reason they couldn’t was the deal the ANC had made with apartheid. Black people would get the vote,but whites would still have the best houses and the best jobs, and pass on privilege to their children. The Commissioners asked Black people to forgive without having first shared the wealth — this was a strategy for political forgiveness. But it wasn’t the revolutionary transformation South African should have seen.

My second main claim is that there’s a connection between revolutions in the small and the large. Each revolution in society builds on millions of subtle changes. Couples, families, workplaces — each changes in a collective struggle. In a social revolution, the oppressed take power — millions of people secure their liberation at once. It is the highest expression of a shared desire for justice. 

In a relationship of just two people, the rule is clear: the person who benefitted from social power must renounce it and take steps to heal their victim. The victim – who has become a survivor – must have control over their relationship in future. That two-person 1917 may not be a ‘revolution’ like the mass of people taking to the streets, but it is a revolution for the survivor.

Forgiveness is a tactic that can turn a temporary victory into a lasting one

What can forgiveness achieve?

When people win, forgiveness is a tactic you can use to turn a temporary victory into a lasting one. Revolutionary statecraft can involve treating defeated enemies with kindness. There’s a story about the Russian revolution in autumn 1917. Socialists raided Tsarist barracks. They arrested their opponents and then let them go free. What, the jubilant crowd debate, should they do with the soldiers who had supported the old power? Junkers fled the Winter Palace the morning it fell. What should revolutionaries do with them? Through the Civil War, leftists faced this question again and again. 

The answer rank-and-file revolutionaries often gave was to free enemy soldiers. If the enemy promised never to fight again, they could go free. Their leaders called them naïve; they were right to be cautious about this offer. The only way a new society would win a lasting victory would be if its opponents accepted the new revolutionary order. That meant — at some point — trusting them. I’m not arguing they were right in every single case when they had to choose — I am saying that there is often a wisdom in letting defeated enemies go free. Knowing when to forgive is an art.

Forgiveness, on its own, is no alternative to the moralism of our moment. That reduction of politics has happened, when the right have been winning. Trump’s allies own the newspapers, the TV stations, the websites. They tell us new technology is coming, in more threatening forms than ever before. People accept moralism when collective solutions seem impossible. But his approach, and allies’ way of doing politics, won’t last forever. Part of getting to a better future involves learning. We need to distinguish people who’ve done real harm, from ones who’ve made lesser mistakes. It involves waiting for people who admit they did wrong. Who are serious about taking steps to repair harm. Listening out for those people and accepting them is part of our resistance.