From Marx to Hegel and other essays

254 Pages·1971·14.97 MB·English

by  George Lichtheim

George Lichtheim
From Marx
to Hegel
Herder and Herder
From Marx
to Hegel
1971
HERDER AND HEIUlER, NEW YORK
232 Madison Avenue, New York 100t6
The author is grateful to the following for permission to reprint:
Triquarler/y for "FroIIlMarx: to Hegel"(nwnbet H2, Spring 1968);
Journal of the Histqry qfP hilosophy for "The Origins CJf Marxism" (Volume III,
number 1, April 19(5);
,
Survey for "On tP-e Interpretation of Marx's Thought" (nunl:ber 62, Jafl1Ua.r)'
1967);
Problems qf Communism for "Marxist Doctrine in Perspective" (November/
December 1958);
Suhrkarnp Verlag for "Sotel" (Theorie, Y, 19(9);
Times Literary Supplement for "Theodor Adorno" (September 28, 1967);
·'From lIistQricism to Marxist Humanism" (June: 5, 1969); "Marxot
Weber: Dialectical Methodology" (March I~, 1970);
PelIJ rork Review qf Books for "A New Twist in the Dialectic" (January gO,
1969); "Technocrats vs. Humanists" (Octobetg. 1969);
Crmmumt4ry for "The Role ofthc Intellectuals" (Apl'il 1960) .
or
.L ibrary Congress Catalog Card Number: jQ-167871
©
Copyright 1971 by George Lichtheim
Printed in Great Britain
Contents
Introduction
V11
From Marx to Hegel
1
The Origins of Marxism 50
On the Interpretation of Marx's Thought 63
Marxist Doctrine in Perspective 80
Sorel 93
Adorno
125
A New Twist in the Dialectic 143
From Historicism to Marxist Humanism 160
Technocrats vs. Humanists
182
Marx or Weber: Dialectical Methodology 200
The Role of the Intellectuals
219
Index 242
Introduction
The essays collected in this volume were mostly written in the
1960'S, a time when the relationship of Marxism to its Hegelian
origins was once more discussed at an intellectual level proper
to the subject. During the preceding decade, all concerned had
become obsessed with what was known as the Cold
War. As a by-product of this concentration upon purely
political issues, it was commonly supposed that Marx was of
interest as a thinker mainly in so far as he prefigured the
Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism or Marxism
Leninism. During the 1960's these certitudes gave way to the
discovery that what was really of lasting importance in Marx's
thought had more to do with the German intellectual tradition
than with the use made of his ideas by Russian revolutionaries.
In consequence, the topic was once again debated in the spirit
in which it had been approached during the 1930'S by the
Central European group of scholars associated with the
Frankfurt Institut flir So~ialforschung and by outsiders such as
the German philosophy professor Karl Korsch. The rise of the
movement vaguely known as the New Left assisted this re-evalu
ation, at any rate in so far as it made possible an interest in
German, French and Italian Marxists who from the Soviet
viewpoint were unorthodox. The Roman Catholic aggiorna
mtnlo, and the growing prominence of public debates between
Catholic and Marxist spokesmen, likewise made a contribution
to the spread of a new intellectual climate.
vii
viii iNTRODUCTION
The present collection of essays must be read agains.t ~his
background. They were written for the purpose .o.f cla~lfymg
theoretical problems quite independent of the polItIcal hne-un
which had resulted in the identification of Marxism with
Leninism. In this respect the author of these lines stands in a
tradition inaugurated by scholars such as Horkheimer, Adorno
and Marcuse in the 1930's, and subsequently revived after the
war by the successors of the original Frankfurt school
Professor Jiirgen Habermas above all. The new problematic
ha,.d to do with the releva,nce of Marxism to a. society which in
some respects no longer permitted a clear-cut distinction
between "material base" and "ideological super-structure",
both areas having been largely taken ov\U' by the state. The
related problem of "technocracy" is the subject of a literature
which assumed distinctive shape only durilli the 1960's. For
the same reason,ilie controversy between the followers of the
Hegelian-Marxist tradition and the positivist school found,d
by Max Weber gained new significance, notably in post-war
Germany, but also in France and Italy. In Eastern Europe,
political conditions inhibited the elucidation of these topics,
although some Yugoslav writers joined the debate. The some
what paradoxical title From Marx to Hegel has been chosen in
order to suggest that the central problem now before us is not
so much to change the world (that is being don.e independently},
but to understand it. If the essays here presented to the public
make ~ contributi~n to this aim, the author for his part will
feel satisfied that Ius purpose has been achieved.
GltORGE LICHTHEIM
LondoIl, April 197 I
From Marx to Hegel
The following observations are offered in an interpretative
and critical spirit. They contain no factual infonnation of a
biographical or historical kind, and presuppose familiarity on
the part of the reader with the penonaliti~ and the work of the
writers under discussion. Anyone curious to discover more about
them must be referred to the sources or to the secondary litera
ture cited in the course of the argument.'
A second cautionary remark may not be superfluous, since
we are dealing with one particular segment of a topic ..... hose
ramifications are likrally world-wide. Anyone concerned with
Marxist theory at the present time is likely to have his atkntion
directed to the discussions under way in France and Italy: these
being the only two Western European countries where the
Communist party has a mass following, and where Marxism
or more precisely Marxism-Leninism-retains its hold over a
section of the intelligentsia. He will then discover that the
version of Marxist theorizing associated with the name of Louis
Althusser cannot be fuHy appreciated unless account is taken of
the post-war developments in French philosophy initiated by
Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, and of the more recent inftuence of
the "structuralist" school. In a certain fundamental sense all
these topics are related to the theme of the present essay, but
they cannot be pursued here. Whereas in France and Italy we
are dealing with a phenomenon best described as a "return to
Marx", the corresponding situation in Central Europe is rather
'2 FROM MARX TO HEGEL
different. for what we have here is not so much a rediscovery
of the authentic core of )'Iarxi::;m as a revival of a philosophical
tradition which can properly be called Ht'gf'lian. It is under
standable that this trend should manifest itsclf in areas where
the Communist party has either failed to reach its goal (Western
Germany and Austria), or has gained political power at the cost
of sacrificing or compromising its humanist purpose (Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary). The East European "revisionists"
confront a situation where the party is in power, but seemingly
unable to satisfy the aims traditionally associated with the new
fonn of social organization. They are thus driven baek upon the
romantic individualism of the young Marx. Meanwhile the
,\-Vest European Communists, having virtually abandoned the
Leninist perspective of civil war and armed insurrection, are
slowly reverting to the Social-Democratic pr-agmatism of their
ancestors, or to a renewal of Syndicalism. Jt is only at the centre
of the Old Continent, in the ancient geographical and spiritual
heartland of Marxism, that one can speak a return to philo
()f
sophy: explicitly in the case of writers like Adorno and Mar
cuse, implicitly in Lukacs' case, for all his olltward assumption
of the orthodox inheritance. In what follows, an attempt is
made to draw out the theoretical and practical implications of
this state of affairs.2
After these preliminaries, let us confront the evidence pointing
to what has been tentatively described as a retreat from :Marx
to Hegel. This is a provisional manner of characterizing the out
look of our three representative thinkers. One might also name a
fourth member of their generation: Karl Kor5ch, although (or
because) his later development led away [rom the Hegelianized
interpretation of :Marx, and towards the conversion of Marxism
into the theory of a revolutionary practice freed from all fonns
of philosophical speculation. This radical empiricism represents
a critical counterpoint to our theme, which concerns the con
t:ary . phe~om~non: na~1c1y the post-I 945 revival of metaphy
Sical Ideahsm III the anCIent Central European heartland of the
Marxist tradition. Still, it does no harm to see how the situation
presenlcd itself thirty years ago to a theorist like Korsch who
in the 1920'S had taken his share in defendiIHY the herjt~fYe of
;:, b
no. . 1IAIlX TO JUC&l.. :3
Gertl.lan lde1l.Jiml. And he it 1T00("rnbered that K.anch ·(aJtMugh
the lirelon~ frito.nd and insp~ or B~chr) bn*~ with the KPD
and th~ Cominll'ftl in the 1910'S becaUi£ tMY acemed to hrm
in.$Uf'ficie.nrly revfllutionary (as ~II as grote:Bquely Ift"Vilc to
MOICOw). H~rc is wh:u t~ author of M• .,.~ "'ltd Philosoplti4
(19'13) had to say in '938, at a. time When <fitilluIionmmt with
the notion of tlprokt.arian ~Iutioo" had not ~t !let in :
JlLSJ. &lI ~tivWn could nOl mo~ with f.tetdDm in the IlCW
field oC social sciDtce, bu.r rttnlLiMd tied to the tpecifie
cimcepu and DlCthl><b oC nat\.Ira.1 scieftct, 10 Mux's hit.
toneal m~t.erja.li.sm has not enitrely freed imelf from the
5~1 0{ Regel', philo.sophical method whidt i.n its day
oycr~hadowed a.U oontemporary thought. Tbis WU not a
m.a'er~JUi.stic s:.ienQ! oC lOCiety which had. developed Oil ill
own ba.\i!!. Rather it VlU ... materialistic tht-ory that had jU$t
~rn('rged from idealist philoeophy; a theory, Ihuefore, whicll
.still $.bowed in i'-' eontcn~ iu. m~hodc. and itS tm:n.inof~
Ute birthnuru of the old Htgelian ptlllOlOph)' I rom. whoJe
womb it sprang.1
A point worth ~ is that wbm OD( ~ of a "'rtt"llm
''0'
to Hegel" one i! rduriDg to the ontological B)'Itetn of
"dialectical materialismJ> £np sketched out in hiJ wri4:io.gJ of
the 1870'.! md ISBo·'.!, and which subseq~ntty became t,he
corDCJ'5lone of the cdifi~ known ''15 ·'Marxism-Leninism'). TIlis
kind of neo-Hegdian~n bas a lOllg history. It began wid\
Engels, was continued by the ltusiatl Marx.ists, and eventually
became the. philosophy. or W.Uansch4:a41,,"g) of Len.ia.ism: save
where (as in Italy and France) the C¢fllmuni!ll movement pro.
duced indi~nous theotW who were ahJ.e to impoae a oorrecti~
to the officia.l line. To cile Koncb once· m{)~: "The critical
principle of Marx·~ social scicftc6 Wa5 during tbe !iumeqU6rt
development of Manism conve11ed into It gerla'al social philo
sophy. from th.is first mocunception it wa.., only one step fll~r
to the idea that the historical and ~conomk ~cience of Marx
must be bastd on the broader fOlmdaLion not only of a social
philO6Ophy, but even of an aJI<ompn:hensiyc 'materialistic
philosophy' embracing both nature and society. or a. gau:ral