Table Of ContentHelmut Fleischer
Marxism History
I
Translated by Hric Mosbacber
r
v
HARPER TORCHBOOKS
Harp of' 6* Row, Pzzbl!5be1'f
New York, E1/af25¢on, San Fmncjfco, London
A hardcover edition. was Host published in 1969 by Suhrkamp Verlag,
Frankfurt am Main under the title, Afarxif tnzzf and Gestbichte.
It was published in Great Britain in 1973 and is here reprinted by
arrangement with Allen Lane The Penquin Press,
MARXISM AND HISTORY.
Copyright 1969 by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
Translation copyright © 1975 by Eric Mosbacher.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part
of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without
written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper 8: Row,
Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53d Street, New York,N.Y. 10022. Published
simultaneously in Canada by Fitzhenry & \X/hiteside Limited, Toronto,
First HARPER TORCHBOOK eiiition published 1973.
STRNDARD ROOR NUMBER: 06451787-X (PAPERBACK)
STANDARD BOOK NUMBER: 06-156156-4 (HARDCOVER )
\
Contents
Preface 7
I Approaches to a Marxist Theory of History I I
2 The Driving Forces of History 38
3 The Totality of the Historical Process 64
4 Historical Necessity 107
5 The Marxist View of History and the Historical Present I28
Notes
142.
Index I 55
Preface
Trying to define the position of Marxist philosophy, particu-
larly the Marxist philosophy of history that is to be discussed
here, means entering a highly controversial Held. In view of the
diversity of the theoretical and practical work of its founders,
who did not devote the whole of their lives to the development
of a philosophical system, and the multiformity of later forms
of 'Marxism', clarity in the matter is not SO easily attained.
Nevertheless it should be possible by means of systematic
interpretation and systematic evaluation to arrive at a closer
definition, and in particular to rule out certain things that are
certainly not Marist. The present work is intended to be a
contribution to this task. It is not intended to cover the whole
ground, but to be merely a systematic survey presenting a
number of corrections and refutations - some of them categoric
cal, others more hypothetical in nature. The choice of subject
and the selection of texts quoted was to a large extent dictated by
a critical look at current interpretations of Marxism. My
original intention was merely to draw up an interim balance-
sheet of the state of the discussion of Marxist philosophy in the
German-speaking world (ten years after that drawn up in 1957
by ]. Habermas), but I then decided on a greater concentration
of subject-matter.
The present study forms part of the very intensive eiiorts
being made at the present time to reconstruct Marxist philosophy
as a humanist-emancipatory philosophy of practice. The attempt
that is made here to establish history as a dimension of human
practice is intended to contrast in particular with two develop-
-
ments of the Marxist concept of history which based on
different approaches to the problem by the founders of Marxism
s Marxirvz and History
-
have hitherto dominated debate on the subject. From one of
- -
these the early writings of 1844 a general anthropological
definition of the meaning of history has been deduced; history
is presented as a process directed towards man's becoming fully
man in the whole wealth of his being, harmoniously united
with his like and with a nature that has been humanized, though
by way of the negativity of 'alienation'. The other, based on the
Critique of Po/iiical Evonofty, has given rise to a highly material
and sober view of history as a process of correlative develop~
rent of productive forces and productive relations governed
by the objective laws of a logic of social relations uninfluenced
by human intentions. This latter view of history has become
dominant in the historical materialism of the Soviet school, and
with its logic of structures and processes sometimes reaches
-
such a degree of abstraction that it is possible to say of it as
-
Marx said of Hobbes that materialism has here become 'anti-
humani It is in reaction against this anti-humanism that the
'young and 'humanist' Marx has been resurrected, but human-
ism tends to lead easily to sentimentalization and theoretical
aberration and to end up in sterile talk about alienation and
Man's nature'.
The Theses on Feuerbach and other writings of 1845-6 on the
materialist view of history put forward a view of historical
'practice' that is both self-critically directed against the earlier
ideas of 1844 and sets critical limits to the later references to the
laws underlying historical processes. We are faced here, not
just with a provisional formulation of what Marx stated in
'classical' form in his Critique 0f Po!ii*ica! Bcon0wy, but with one
of the foundations of Marxist historical thought. There is
justification for seeking a better understanding of due 'later' and
'mature' Marx from the study of the 'young' Marx, but one
should not solely and excessively concentrate on the author of
the Parer Manuscripts of 1844, but take into account above all
the Marx and Engels of the criticism of Feuerbach.
The first of the five chapters is concerned with examining
what Marx and Engels wrote on the theory of history. This, in
-
the author's view, yields three different approaches to the
meaning of history as a whole, the way it works in practice, and
its underlying laws. The next three chapters are more specifically
concerned with the problems arising from these approaches,
Preface 9
In the one dealing with its 'driving forces' we have above all to
explain the concept of history as practice, ldstory-making
activity and its subjective centre. The chapter on the totality of
the historical process is devoted to the question of the general
meaning of history, which was very prominent on Marx's and
Engels's horizon in 1844, though it then receded from their Held
of vision without ever completely disappearing from it. In the
chapter on historical necessity we discuss some of the key prob-
lems that arise from attempting to organize history into an
obje ctive logical system. The last chapter discusses very
selectively some problems of the Marxist interpretation of con-
temporary history.
One Approaches to a Marxist
Theory of History
From the very beginning 'history' has been a key word in
-
Marxist philosophy in the sense that a great deal is locked
up in it; so much so that trying to dock it has become one of
the hazards of the modern history of ideas. Even after a whole
century of interpretation and system-building, our picture of
Marx's and the Marxist theory is a very uncertain one. Wfhen
one considers on the one hand, for instance, K. R. Popper's
reconstruction of Marxist 'historicisln' and on the other the
ideas of the contemporary advocates of a 'Marxist humanism',
it is clear that there could hardly be greater disagreement than
that which has arisen from this attempt to draw conclusions
from a fragmentary series of texts.
The nature of the texts themselves is one of the doings that
makes for such divergence. They are without exception frag-
menrary, they belong to different phases of their authors'
development, and often enough definite aspects of their views
are emphasized for polemical purposes. All this has become so
topical, however, only because Marx's work has stimulated the
enthusiasm and the hatred of the political parties as has hardly
anything else in our century.
A distinctive feature of most interpretations is the great self-
confidence with which unequivocal and categorical statements
are made about the Marxist theory of history, often based on
quotations that of-fer die flimsiest foundation. Many, for in-
stance, have no hesitation in seeing the essence of the theory
in a handy phrase coined by one of Marx's reviewers. The
polemically accentuated phraseology of the Marxist classics
has given critics many opportunities to pin down Marx in
extreme and surprising positions. Even where he has been
