Dick Spring and Fergus Finlay have made a real difference, not only to the Labour Party but to politics; and not only to politicians but to everyone who thinks seriously about public life.
The changes which Mr Spring inspired and Mr Finlay helped greatly to achieve have had a profound influence on political standards, on the standing of the left and on the way in which politicians of all shades conduct their affairs.
What they did best was to develop an approach to politics which depended less on rhetoric and more on reason than that of their opponents within or outside Labour; and when the party suffered two significant electoral defeats, they accepted their responsibilities and resigned.
For Labour, the first item now on a crowded agenda is to choose a leader and to find an adviser - or a school of advisers - in tune with the times and with the leader's ideas.
But deciding between Ruairi Quinn, Brendan Howlin and Michael D. Higgins, or whoever else may stand, is only one of the problems the parliamentary party and the general council must face. The more critical decision has to do with where the party stands, where it's going and how it intends to get there.
This means repeating an exercise successfully undertaken by an electoral commission in the mid-1980s when the intellectual foundations were laid for the electoral successes and legislative reforms of the 1990s.
The exercise needs to be repeated, though whether by way of commission, as a convention of the left or as a combination of internal and wider discussions has yet to be considered. What's important now is that the party recognise the process is essential.
The successes of the 1990s are properly claimed for Mr Spring and a generation of parliamentary colleagues, many of whom were already in the Dail or Seanad when he arrived in 1981.
It's only now that due credit is being awarded to Mr Finlay and his fellow advisers, John Rogers, William Scally and Greg Sparks. They've long been suspect in predictable quarters.
Fianna Fail managers still blame them for undermining the FFLabour coalition. Some grudging commentators and several Labour backbenchers always considered them too clever by half.
But if the parliamentarians and advisers depended on each other, the groundwork had been laid by the commission. It was intended at first as a means of calming a party riven by disagreements which neither the electorate nor many of its members fully understood.
The year was 1986; Labour was in government with Fine Gael, and every get-together became a venue for bareknuckle bouts between coalitionists and anti-coalitionists.
Ministers subjected to flights of socialist rhetoric and accusations of opportunism or betrayal took refuge in cabinet discussions on the state of the economy, public spending and the North in the aftermath of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
It was clear that a party divided half-and-half along pseudo-ideological lines and forever bogged down in procedural wrangles was going nowhere.
The commission's solution was relatively simple. In essence, it recommended that the party should take several years to build its strength and enter government only when it was strong enough to do so on its own terms.
Coalition, it was clear, was a tactic, not a principle; Labour could participate in government when the party had a clear set of demands and the muscle to ensure their acceptance.
It took six years for the opportunity to present itself and then in a way that few expected. Mr Spring was astonished by the conference which agreed to coalition with Fianna Fail after the 1992 election. There was no opposition.
Now, it's seen as the moment when public opinion turned against Labour and against Mr Spring in particular. This mood was confirmed in the general election and the point made then was underlined by the defeat of Adi Roche.
What's still puzzling - and must now be fully explored - is why the public, for all its disappointment at the partnership with FF, should ignore the promises which Labour fulfilled.
Few parties in government have had such an encouraging record. Indeed few, if any, governments have been as united and imaginative as the centreleft administration led by John Bruton, in which it was demonstrated that if Labour could handle Finance and Foreign Affairs with assurance, Democratic Left was equally capable in the offices it held.
Many who had criticised the left in 1992 - and later - clearly felt that Labour's place in politics was, at best, as a prop to keep its betters in office and Democratic Left didn't qualify for office at all.
This patronising humbug has been exposed. The parties whose leaders or ministers have had to be watched, censured or sacked aren't parties of the left. Tribunals have had to be set up to investigate the affairs of Charles Haughey and Michael Lowry, the activities of Fianna Fail and its friends in the beef industry, the hellbent rezoners of FF and FG, augmented on occasion by the Progressive Democrats.
Yet, as Fintan O'Toole pointed out here yesterday, when corruption was exposed and the electorate began to feel disillusioned with politics, the politicians to suffer most were those on the left who'd uncovered the rot, not the parties whose senior members had fattened on the rottenness.
As Labour and the other parties of the left - DL and the Green Party - look to their future, they may reflect that two of them at least have worked well in government and are clearly willing to continue their co-operation.
But for the left, politics is not simply about getting and holding power, and relations with FF and FG continue to be problematical.
There are straws in the wind. Some of Labour's low points in the last 10 years came during its time in the government with the greatest majority, when it attempted to justify the tax amnesty and agreed to a limited debate on the report of the beef tribunal.
And there was a high point of co-operation with Fine Gael and Democratic Left when Mr Bruton, in his debate with Bertie Ahern at the end of the general election campaign, struck a true social democratic note when he said that if there was an over-run in spending but the money had been spent on health, education and welfare, he'd make no apology for it.
However, for the left the first step is to work with its own near neighbours in a campaign to engage the attention of a disillusioned electorate. It will take passionate commitment, vigour, decency and openness to convince those who have lost faith in the process.
No one who takes the slightest interest in the world around them can fail to be aware of the continuing need to make this a more egalitarian society or of the anger which many feel at the lopsided way of things.
This is a rich country and promises to be richer. It's unfairly divided and the unfairness is increasing all the time. It's up to the left to get its own house in order the better to assault the greedy and the careless. And if that means staying out of office after the next election, so be it.