[...] The true novelty of the Syriza government is that it is a governmental event--the first time that a Western radical Left (not the old-style Communist one) has taken state power. The entire rhetoric, so beloved of the New Left, of acting at a distance from the state, has to be abandoned: one has to heroically assume full responsibility for the welfare of the entire people and leave behind the basic Leftist 'critical' attitude of finding a perverse satisfaction in providing sophisticated explanations of why things had to take a wrong turn.