Recently I discovered something rather terrible. In a way I had always known but refused to acknowledge it. Now I have done so. I have established beyond any reasonable doubt that the right-wing revolution, of which we have heard so much both with praise and loathing, never happened. It was a very simple discovery that led me to the acknowledgement of this fact: the fact that I and many others are fighting very largely the same battles my father and his friends and colleagues fought thirty years ago. The only difference is, and I am loath to acknowledge it, that many people who were or would have been on our side at the time, no longer are.

The most recent reminder of how little things have changed and if they have done, mostly for the worse, was the visit of President Jiang Zemin of China. Not only were we reminded of the obsequious welcome prepared or given years ago to President Kosygin, Ceausescu and his wife, KGB boss turned trade union leader Alexander Shelepin, police interrogator and torturer turned prime minister Mitja Ribicic, to name but a few, but reality in 1999 proved to be far more shocking. British police officers were seen to attack peaceful demonstrators. They had, it transpired later, co-ordinated their security arrangements with Chinese security officers, whose previous job may well have been even more distasteful. At the end of a few humiliating days we were told triumphantly that trade agreements had been signed to the tune of £1.6 billion with the murderous Communist regime.

That appears to be the price of British freedom, which some time in the past the Right allegedly fought for: £1.6 billion. So much for the fight and the supposed victory. Unfortunately, the same problem appears in other walks of political, economic and social life. The state no longer owns huge tracks of our economy - it now regulates, a far cheaper alternative, since the price is paid by those who are regulated and the state does not have to raise unpopular direct taxes. But the results are very similar: economic disincentive, social dislocation, loss of freedom. At a time when power is exercised by apparatchiks either in Whitehall or Brussels, whose devotion to their ideology of regulatory order and European integration is legendary, what has become of the right-wing victory over the forces of state control?

I need not even enumerate what is happening in education, the social services, in organizations hitherto untouched by left-wing propaganda, like the police or the many ways in which our lives are being restricted by the bloated insatiable state. But I do want to mention one more failure: while the Right has meekly accepted all the accusations flung at it about spurious connections with ridiculously stupid, unpleasant but unimportant extremist organizations, no such obloquy has attached itself to those who have openly, consistently and for a long time supported murderous Communist and other vaguely left-wing regimes. Again, the situation has become worse: confused by the post-Soviet political situation, many on the Right with impeccable anti-Soviet credentials now happily and vociferously give their support to former Communist bosses masquerading as nationalist leaders.

All of which leads one to suppose that not only the so-called right wing revolution fizzled out ineffectually but that the Right itself has destroyed itself in the one battle it appears to have won - the destruction of the Soviet Union. (Though the victory seems somewhat hollow as one surveys the developments in the former Soviet and other East European countries.)

It has become a political truism that the Left lost its bearings the day the Berlin Wall was brought down. Unfortunately, so did the seemingly victorious Right. In other words, the Soviet system like a scorpion managed to accomplish its aim: the destruction of Western political life. British political life, particularly on the right, did not survive the events of 1989-92. Clearly, what had motivated the Right had been a justified fear and distrust of the Soviet Union and its clients, whether states or organizations. There appears to have been no other principle, no uniting, even multifaceted ideology that could have carried it through victory into the new political reality. Judging by subsequent pronouncements many of those who had fought against the Soviet Union never really understood clearly why it was a bad system and its agents and supporters bad people.

There are three aspects of political activity where the Right has failed to build on its victory over the menace abroad and at home. It has not followed up economic liberalization with a political one, not understanding that a change in attitude towards individual life and individual responsibility had to support the change towards property that had taken place in the eighties. Secondly, it did not work out a coherent point of view on matters constitutional and has come up with no useful definition of what is a democracy, preferring to accept the Left's self-serving definition of simple majoritarianism, otherwise known as demagoguery. Thirdly, it has found itself completely at a loss in foreign affairs.

The tempting response that it is an admirable characteristic of the Right to have many different opinions is not sufficient. I am not talking about necessary differences in opinion but about a lack of underlying principles or even basic points of view.

Let us look at the first aspect of political activity. The fight against nationalization and the power of the unions was important and necessary. The transfer of utilities and other business into private hands, making it possible for private enterprise to flourish, undermining the illegitimate and oppressive power of big trade unions, the sale of council houses, all these were admirable. But they did not go far enough, not simply because the Thatcher government ran out of time but because there was no real push to go on. The question arises did the Right fully understand the importance of politics either ideologically or strategically or did it simply turn the crudest form of Marxism on its head and became completely embroiled in purely economic discussions? Certainly, it has taken the Right a long time to grasp that ownership of production may not in the modern world be as important as regulation of it. And all-pervasive regulation proceeds partly from the power-hungry officials both in Whitehall and in Brussels but also from the wide-spread acceptance by the people of this country that it is the government's duty to "do something" about whatever it is that has gone wrong at that moment. The notion of political and social freedom has not gone along with that of economic freedom, as a result of which we stand in grave danger of losing even the latter. Even privatization has not been fully accepted if the popular reaction to the Paddington train crash is anything to go by. People will not really like the renationalised railway but their first instinct is to suggest that as a solution to any complicated or difficult problem.

Has the Right then really won the battle for economic freedom? Not according to small businessmen who are being driven to the wall by a combination of busybody regulation and big business pressure. By big business pressure I do not mean competition in the market but pressure by big business on government to bring in more regulations, allegedly in the name of safety but really to make sure that smaller competitors do not stay the course. And yet, small and medium size, often niche business, agile, alert, capable of trading in the modern world is one of this country's strengths, or would be if it were allowed to continue through the dismantling of the regulatory order and the abandonment of the popular notion that the government is there to solve everybody's problems.

What of the constitution and the definition of democracy? Is that not what the whole battle was about? Freedom, democracy, a clearly comprehensible legal order? Maybe, but that is hardly what we have now. The present government is perhaps the greatest political vandal since the seventeenth century, with the difference that Mr Blair has no real ideas beyond power wielded by him and his cronies. But by accepting the proposition that democracy depends solely on the number of votes cast for a candidate selected by a party, the Right has stood by and allowed the destruction of the Union, of Parliament and of the legal system to take place, all in the name of democracy or a spurious definition thereof. Added to that is the all-embracing question of whether Britain should belong to the European Union, a question that the Right seems unable to answer, understanding some of the problems but refusing to contemplate drastic solutions.

Finally, foreign affairs - a sad tale. With no immediately visible enemy, the Right has been at a complete loss. Now supporting former Communist thugs, rebranded as democrats, socialists or national leaders; now wringing its hands about possible or probable victims; now recoiling when the going got a little tough - the Right seems to have no ideas what sort of a world it would like to work towards in the post-Soviet era. It seems unable to understand that the world did not either stop on November 9, 1989 or change instantly and irrevocably. Many of the same people and the same ideas are still around but at the same time many completely new ones have emerged. And decisions will have to be taken. Where do British interests lie? Which side are we going to take in the old conundrum that has just acquired a new sheen: territorial integrity or national self-determination? How long are we going to accept the supremacy of international bodies that have no real legitimacy but had grown out of a particular situation immediately after the War? It is a difficult new world we are facing in which decisions cannot be taken simply by looking at one particular large monster. Whatever the Soviet Union backed had to be bad and vice versa. Now, questions of right and wrong are beginning to reassert themselves and the fates of peoples and nations we have forgotten about are once again on the agenda. In this bad new world the Right of this country is adrift, which is what makes one think that many of is supporters had never understood what was wrong with the Soviet Union. For it certainly seems unable to understand what is wrong with many of those who had succeeded to the Soviet rulers or the Soviet backed rulers in many parts of the world.

And so, thirty years on, many of us are finding ourselves fighting the battles we thought our parents had won. This time round we had better define our terms a little more clearly and choose our allies a little more carefully. Otherwise we shall either lose once more or win spuriously. And our children will have to fight the same battles yet again.

(Helen Szamuely is a political researcher and writer with a particular interest in helping to destroy the European Union)