Table Of Content-,
Main Currents of Marxism is a handbook and
a thorough survey of the varieties of
Marxism; it will be published in three
volumes. The author delineates the develop
ment of Marx's own thought and the
contributions of his best-known followers.
No survey of the doctrines of the Marxist
tradition could fail to be controversial but
Professor Kolakowski's treatment is detached
and pluralistic and he does not attempt to
identify a pure or essentially Marxist strand
in the tradition as a whole. There is no better
example of the variety of Marxism than the
diversity which results from the tension
between the Utopian and fatalist impulses in
Marx's thought. In Professor Kolakowski's
own words 'The surprising diversity of views
expressed by Marxists in regard to Marx's
so-called historical determinism is a factor
which makes it possible to present and
schematize with precision the trends of
twentieth-century Marxism. It is also clear
that one's answer to the question concerning
the place of human consciousness and will in
the historical process goes far towards deter
mining the sense one ascribes to socialist
ideals and is directly linked with the theory
of revolutions and of crises'.
In Volume Three, The Breakdown,
Professor Kolakowski begins with an analysis
of Stalinism and a discussion of the impact
of Marxism on the culture of the Soviet
Union. There are Chapters on Trotsky,
Gramsci, Lukacs, Korsch and developments
in Marxism since the Second World War.
Professor Leszek Kolakowski was for many
years, unti I March 1968 when he was expelled
for political reasons, Professor of the History
of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw.
He is now a fellow of All Souls College,
Oxford, and has been a visiting Professor at
the Universities of Montreal, Yale, and
California, Berkeley.
MAIN CURRENTS
OF MARXISM
MAIN CURRENTS
OF MARXISM
ITS ORIGIN, GROWTH,
AND DISSOLUTION
by
Leszek Kolakowski
VOLUME III
THE BREAKDOWN
Translated from the Polish
by
P. S. Falla
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
1978
Oxford Universiry Press, Walton Street, Oxford ox2 6op
OXFORD LONDON GLASGOW
NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
IBADAN NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM LUSAKA CAPE TOWN
KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE JAKARTA HONG KONG TOKYO
DELHI BOMBAY CALCUTIA MADRAS KARACHI
© Oxford University Press 1978
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior permission <if Oxford University Press
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Kolakowski, Leszek
Main currents of Marxism.
Vol. 3: The breakdown.
1. Communism-History
I. Title II. Falla, Paul Stephen
335.4'09'034 HX21 78---40082
ISBN 0-19-824570-X
Filmset in Great Britain by
Northumberland Press Ltd, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
and printed by
Fletcher and Son Ltd, Norwich
PREFACE
THE present volume deals with the evolution of Marxism in the
last half-century. Writing it has involved especial difficulties,
one of which is the sheer bulk of the available literature: no
historian can be fully acquainted with it, and it is therefore,
so to speak, impossible to do everyone justice. Another difficulty
is that I am not able to treat the subject with the desirable detach
ment. Many of the people mentioned in this volume I know
or have known personally, and some of them are or were my
friends. Moreover, in describing the controversies and political
struggles in Eastern Europe in the later 1950s I am writing about
events and issues in which I myself took part, so that I appear
in the invidious role of a judge in my own cause. At the same
time, I could not pass over these matters in silence. The upshot
is that the most recent period, which is the one I know best
from my own experience, is treated less fully than any other.
The last chapter, which deals with this period, could be expanded
into a further volume; but, setting aside the difficulties already
mentioned, I am not convinced that the subject is intrinsically
worthy of treatment at such length.
CONTENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE XI
I. THE FIRST PHASE OF SOVIET MARXISM.
THE BEGINNINGS OF STALINISM
1. What was Stalinism?
2. The stages of Stalinism 5
3. Stalin's early life and rise to power 9
4. Socialism in one country 21
5. Bukharin and the N.E.P. ideology. The economic
controversy of the 1920s 25
II. THEORETICAL CONTROVERSIES IN SOVIET
MARXISM IN THE 1920s 45
1. The intellectual and political climate 45
2. Bukharin as a philosopher 56
3. Philosophical controversies: Deborin versus the
mechanists 63
III. MARXISM AS THE IDEOLOGY OF THE
SOVIET STATE 77
1. The ideological significance of the great purges 77
2. Stalin's codification of Marxism 91
3. The Comintern and the ideological transformation of
international Communism 105
IV. THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF MARXISM
LENINISM AFTER THE SECOND WORLD
WAR 117
1. The wartime interlude 1 17
2. The new ideological offensive 121
3. The philosophical controversy of 1947 125
4. The economic debate 130
5. Marxism-Leninism in physics and cosmology 131
6. Marxist-Leninist genetics 136
7. General effect on Soviet science 13 9
Vlll Contents
8. Stalin on philology 141
g. Stalin on the Soviet economy 142
IO. General features of Soviet culture in Stalin's last years 144
11. The cognitive status of dialectical materialism 151
12. The roots and significance of Stalinism. The question of a
'new class' 15 7
13. European Marxism during the last phase of Stalinism 166
V. TROTSKY 183
1. The years of exile 183
2. Trotsky's analysis of the Soviet system, the bureaucracy,
and 'Thermidor' 1 go
3. Bolshevism and Stalinism. The idea of Soviet democracy 194
4. Criticism of Soviet economic and foreign policy 201
5. Fascism, democracy, and war 206
6. Conclusions 212
VI. ANTONIO GRAMSCI: COMMUNIST
REVISIONISM 220
1. Life and works 221
2. The self-sufficiency of history; historical relativism 228
3. Critique of 'economism'. Prevision and will 231
4. Critique of materialism 237
5. Intellectuals and the class struggle. The concept of
hegemony 240
6. Organization and mass movement. The society of
2«
~fu~
7. Summary 249
VII. GYORGY LUKACS: REASON IN THE
SERVICE OF DOGMA 253
1. Life and intellectual development. Early writings 255
2. The whole and the part: critique of empiricism 264
3. The subject and object of history. Theory and practice.
What is and what ought to be. Critique of
neo-Kantianism and evolutionism 269
4. Critique of the 'dialectic of nature' and the theory of
reflection. The concept of reification 273
5. Class-consciousness and organization 280
6. Critique of irrationalism 284
7. The whole, mediation, and mimesis as aesthetic categories 287
8. Realism, socialist realism, and the avant-garde 292
g. The exposition of Marxist mythology. Commentary 297
10. Lukacs as a Stalinist, and his critique of Stalinism 300
