Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia

1306 Pages·1995·4.15 MB·English

by  Andrzej Walicki

Andrzej Walicki
Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom
of Freedom
The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 1995
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Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 1995 by the Board of Trustees
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Original printing 1995 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 05 04 03
02 01 00 99 98 97 96
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To Marzena
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[This page intentionally left blank.]
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Acknowledgments
This book, which was finished in September 1992, is mostly a result of several
years of my research and teaching at the University of Notre Dame. Several
chapters are directly related to my graduate courses on "The Marxist Conception
of Freedom," "Soviet Marxism," and "The Marxist Theory of Communism."
Work on this book was also supported by the following institutions: the Social
Philosophy and Policy Center at the University of Bowling Green (Ohio), where
I spent the spring semester of 1989; the J. S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,
whose fellowship in 1990-91 enabled me to enjoy several months of productive
work and lively scholarly contacts in Russia; and finally, the Humanities
Research Centre of the Australian National University (Canberra), which offered
me three months' visiting fellowship from May through August 1992. To all
these institutions, grateful acknowledgment is made.
Among friends and colleagues to whom I feel indebted for helping me to persist
in coping with the vast and often thankless subject of this book, I should mention
the following:
Dr. Zbigniew Pelczynski, from Pembroke College, Oxford, who in 1980 became
interested in my views on Marxism and asked me to write an essay on "The
Marxian Conception of Freedom" for the book Conceptions of Liberty in
Political Philosophy (ed. Z. Pelczynski and J. Gray, London, 1984); Professor
Leszek Kolakowski, an old friend who read this essay in 1981 and, despite his
declining interest in the subject, encouraged me
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to continue my work in this field; Sir Isaiah Berlin, who read my article "Marx
and Freedom," commented on it in a long letter to me, and recommended it for
publication in the New York Review of Books; and finally, Professor T. H. Rigby,
from the Australian National University, who read the last two chapters,
commented on them, and above all, supported my hope that a book by an
intellectual historian might prove interesting and relevant to political scientists.
I am grateful also to Mrs. Elisabeth Short, the research assistant in the History of
Ideas Unit in the Australian National University, for reading chapters 4, 5, and 6
and greatly improving my style. Of course, she is not responsible for the final
linguistic shape of this work.
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Contents
A Note to the Reader xi
Introduction I
1. Marx as Philosopher of Freedom
1.1. Preliminary Remarks II
1.2. Civil and Political Liberty: A Confrontation with
21
Liberalism
1.3. The Story of Self-Enriching Alienation: A General
38
Outline
1.4. The Paris Manuscripts: Human Essence Lost and
44
Regained
1.5. The German Ideology: The Division of Labor and the
53
Myth of Human Identity
1.6. Grundrisse: The World Market as Alienated
62
Universalism
1.7. Self-Enriching Alienation in Capital and the
71
Abandonment of Youthful Optimism
1.8. The Vision of the Future: The Transition Period and
89
the Final Ideal
1.9. Capitalism and Freedom in the Post-Marxian
99
Sociological Tradition: The Case of Marx Versus Simmel
2. Engels and "Scientific Socialism"
2.1. The Problem of "Engelsian Marxism" III
2.2. From Pantheism to Communism 124
2.3. Political Economy and Communist Utopia 139
2.4. "Historical Necessity" in the World of Nations 152
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2.5. Freedom as "Necessity Understood" 167
2.6. From Freedom Lost to Freedom . . . Regained? 179
2.7. The Dual Legacy 196
3. Variants of "Necessitarian" Marxism
3.1. Karl Kautsky: From the "Historical Necessity" of
208
Communism to the "Historical Necessity" of Democracy
3.2. Georgii Plekhanov: "Historical Necessity" as Utopian
228
Ideal
3.3. Rosa Luxemburg, or Revolutionary Amor Fati 246
4. Leninism: From "Scientific Socialism" to
Totalitarian Communism
4.1. Lenin's Tragedy of Will and Fate 269
4.2. Lenin's Critique of "Bourgeois Freedom" and the
279
Russian Populist Heritage
4.3. The Workers' Movement and the Party 291
4.4. The Destruction of "Nomocracy" and the
303
Legitimization of Violence
4.5. The Partisan Principle in Literature and Philosophy 309
4.6. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the State 322
4.7. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Law 346
4.8. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Economic
359
Utopia
5. From Totalitarian Communism to Communist
Totalitarianism
5.1. Leninism and Stalinism: The Controversy over the
398
Continuity Thesis
5.2. Stalinist Marxism as a Total View of the World 426
5.3. "Dual Consciousness" and Totalitarian "Ideocracy" 454
6. The Dismantling of Stalinism: Detotalitarization
and Decommunization
6.1. Preliminary Remarks 495
6.2. Marxist Freedom and Communist Totalitarianism 497
6.3. The Phases and Factors of Detotalitarization and
508
Decommunization
6.4. Gorbachev's Perestroika and the Final Rejection of
536
Communist Freedom
Notes 559
Works Cited 619
Index of Names 637
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