。。。 GEORG LUKACS History and Studies in Class Consciousness Marxist Dialectics translated by Rodney Livingstone er
GEORG LUKACS Byi FANINO OF CONTEMH0人x人M History and class C onsciousness Studies in Marxist Dialectics Translated by Rodney Livingstone THE MIT PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
335,4!E L o4 冫氵 e 1968 by Hermann Luchterhand Verlag Gmbh Contents Translation 1971 The Merlin Press Ltd First published in this edition by The Merlin Press Ltd Translator’sNot IsBN 0 262 12035 6(hardcover) Preface to the new edition(1967) IsBN 0 262 62020 0(paperback) Preface Library of Congress catalog card number: 70-146824 What is Orthodox Marxism? Printed in Great Britain The Marxism of Rosa Luxemburg Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat I The Phenomenon of Reification II The Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought The Standpoint of the Pr The Changing Function of Historical Materialism Legality and Illegality 256 Critical Observations on Rosa Luxemburg's"Critique of Towards a ethodology of the Problem of Organisation 295 notes to the English Edition 354
For Gertrud Borstieber translator’ s Note I have consulted both the French translation of 1960 by K. Axielos andJ. Bois, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, and the version of"What is Orthodox Marxism? by Michael Harrington in New International, Summer 1957
Preface to the New Edition(967) IN an old autobiographical sketch(of 1933) I called the story of my early development My Road to Marx. The writings collected in this volume encompass my years of apprenticeship in Marxism. In publishing again the most important documents of this (1918-1930)my intention is to emphasise their experimental nature and on no account to suggest that they have any topical mportance in the current controversies about the true nature of Marxism. In view of the great uncertainty prevailing with re ard to its essential content and its methodological validity, it is ecessary to state this quite firmly in the interests of intellectual integrity. On the other hand, if both they and the contemporary situation are scrutinised critically these essays will still be found to have a certain documentary value in the present debates. Hence the writings assembled here do more than simply illuminate the stages of my personal development; they also show the path taken by intellectual events generally and as long as they are viewed critically they will not be lacking in significance for an under- standing of the present Of course, I cannot possibly Marxism around 1918 without bricfly mentioning my carlier development. As I emphasised in the sketch I have just referred to. i frst read Marx while I was still at school. Later, around 1908 I made a study of Capital in order to lay a sociologic oundation for my monograph on modern drama. At the time then, it was Marx the'sociologist' that attracted me-and I saw him through spectacles tinged by Simmel and Max Weber. I resumed my studies of Marx during world War I, but this time was So the influence of Hegel rather than any contemporary thinker Of course, even Hegel's effect upon me was highly ambiguous. For, on the one hand, Kierkegaard had played a significant role in my early development and in the immediate pre-war years in Heidelberg I even planned an essay on his criticism of Hegel On the other hand, the contradictions in my social and p
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION views brought me intellectually into contact with Syndicalism of capitalism became to a certain extent a positive element in and above all with the philosophy of Georges Sorel. I strove to go the new synthesis. I have never succumbed to the error that I have beyond bourgeois radicalism but found myself repelled by social often noticed in workers and petty-bourgeois intellectuals who democratic theory(and especially Kautsky's version of it). My despite everything could never free themselves entirely from their interest in Sorel was aroused by Ervin Szabo, the spiritual mento awe of the capitalist world. The hatred and contempt I had of the Hungarian left-wing opposition in Social Democracy. felt for life under capitalism ever since my childhood preserved During the war years I became acquainted with the works of me from this Rosa Luxemburg. All this produced a highly contradictory Mental confusion is not always chaos. It may strengthen the malgam of theories that was decisive for my thought t during internal contradictions for the time being but in the lons&mo it will lead to their resolution. Thus my ethics tended in th i think that I would be departing from the truth if i were to direction of praxis, action and hence towards politics. and this attempt to iron out the glaring contradictions of that period by led in turn to economics, and the need for a theoretical grounding artificially constructing an organic development and fitting it there finally brought me to the philosophy of marxism. Of course, into the correct pigeon-hole in the 'history of ideas. If Faust all these developments took place slowly and unevenly. but the could have two souls within his breast, why should not a normal direction I was taking began to become clear even during the war person unite conflicting intellectual trends within himself when fter the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. The Theory of the he finds himself changing from one class to another in the middle Novel* was written at a time when i was still in a general state of of a world crisis In so far as i am able to recall those years, despair (see my Preface to the New Edition). It is no wonder at least, find that my ideas hovered between the acquisition of then, that the present appeared in it as a Fichtean condition of Marxism and political activism on the one hand, and the constant adation and that any hop tensification of my purely idealistic ethical preoccupations on utopian mirage. Only the Russian Revolution really opened a window to the future; the fall of Czarism brought a glimpse of it, I find this confirmed when I read the articles I wrote at the and with the collapse of capitalism it appeared in full view. time. When i recall At the time our knowledge of the facts and the principles underly ant literary essays from that period I find that their aggressive and ing them was of the slightest and very unreliable. Despite this we paradoxical idealism often outdoes that of my earlier works. saw--at last! at lastI-a way for mankind to escape from war At the same time the e process of assimilating Marxism and capitalism. Of course, even when we recall this enthusiasm apace. If I now regard this disharmonious dualism as character- we must take care not to idealise the past. I myself-and I can istic of my ideas at that period it is not my intention to paint it phase: my last hesitations before making my final, irrevocable confined within the limits of a struggle between revolutionary choice, were marked by a misguided attempt at an apologia ood and the vestigial evil of bourgeois thought. The transition fortified with abstract and Philistine arguments. But the final decision could not be resisted for ever. The little essay Tactics complex business than that. Looking back at it now I see that and Ethics reveals its inner human motivations for all its romantic anti-capitalistic overtones, the ethical idealism It is not necessary to waste many words on the few essays that I took from Hegel made a number of real contributions to the were written at the time of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and picture of the world that emerged after this crisis. Of course, the period leading up to it. Intellectually we were unprepared they had to be dislodged from their position of supremacy (or pared than anyone--to come even equality)and modified fundamentally before they could with the tasks that confronted us. Our enthusiasm was a become part of a new, homogeneous outlook. Indeed, this is makeshift substitute for knowledge and experience. I need.very ent to point out that even my int An English translation of this work is in preparation
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION(1967) tion only one fact by way of illustration: we knew hardly anything other Communists. In such circumstances it is not surprising that of Lenins theory of revolution and of the vital advances he had a magazine called Communism was founded which for a time became made in that area of Marxism. Only a few articles and pamphlets a focal point for the ultra-left currents in the Third International had been translated and made available at that time, and of those Together with Austrian Communists, Hungarian and Polish who had taken part in the Russian Revolution some (like Sza- emigrants, who provided the inner core and the permanent muely) had little talent for theory and others(like Bela Kun) membership, there were also sympathisers from the Italian were strongly infuenced by the Russian left-wing opposition. ultra-left, like Bordiga and Terracini, and Dutch Communists It was not until my emigration to Vienna that I was able to like Pannekoek and Roland Holst. make a thorough study of Lenin's theory. The result was that In these circumstances it was natural that the dualism of my my thought of this period, too, contained an unresolved dualism. attitudes should not only have reached a climax but shoule It was partly that I was unable to find the correct solutio also have crystallised out into a curious new practical and principle to the quite catastrophic mistakes committed by the opportunists, such as their solution to the agrarian problem which mumism I was active in helping to work out a new ' left-wing' went along purely social-democratic lines. And partly that my political and theoretical line. It was based on the belief, very own intellectual predilections went in the direction of an abstract much alive at the time, that the great revolutionary wave that utopianism in the realm of cultural politics. Today, after an inter would soon sweep the whole world, or Europe at the very least, val of nearly half a I am astounded to find how fruitful to socialism, had inno way been broken by the setbacks in Finland, our activities were, relativelyspeaking. (Remaining on the theoreti- Hungary and Munich. Events like the Kapp Putsch, the occupa cal level i should point out that the first version of the two essay tion of the factories in Italy, the Polish-Soviet War and even the What is Orthodox Marxism? and The Changing Function of Historical March Action, strengthened our belief in the imminence of Materialism, date from this period. They were revised for History world revolution and the total transformation of the civilised and Class Consciousness but their basic orientation remains the same world. Of course, in discussing this sectarianism of the early My emigration to vienna was the start of a period of study. twenties we must not imagine anything like the sectarianism seen And, in the first instance, this meant furthering my acquaintance in Stalinist praxis. This aimed at protecting the given power with the works of Lenin. Needless to say, this study was not di- relations against all reforms; its objectives were conservative and vorced from revolutionary activity for a single moment. What was its methods bureaucratic. The sectarianism of the twenties had needed above all was to breathe new life into the revolutionary messianic, utopian aspirations and its methods were violently workers'movement in Hungary and to maintain continui opposed to bureaucracy. The two trends have only the name in new slogans and policies had to be found that would enable i common and inwardly they represent two hostile extremes. survive and expand during the White Terror. The slanders of the (Of course, it is true that even in the Third International zinoviev ictatorship--whether purely reactionary or social-democratic and his disciples introduced bureaucratic methods, just as it is was immaterial-had to be refuted. At the same time it was true that Lenins last years, at a time when he was already necessary to begin the process of Marxist self-criticism of the burdened by ill-health, were filled with anxiety about the problem proletarian dictatorship. In addition we in Vienna found ourselves of fighting the growing, spontaneously generated bureaucratism- swept along by the current of the international revolutionary tion of the Soviet Republic on the basis of proletatian democracy movement. The Hungarian emigration was perhaps the most But even here we perceive the distinction between the sectarians numerous and the most divided at the time, but it was by no of then and now. My essay on questions of organisation in the means the only one. There were many emigres from Poland and Hungarian Party is directed against the theory and practice of the Balkans living in Vienna either temporarily or permanently. Zinoviev s disciple, Bela Kun. Moreover, Vienna was an international transit point, so that we Our magazine strove to propagate a messianic sectarianism by were in continuous contact with German, French, Italian and working out the most radical methods on every issue, and by
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION (1967) ocIal a total break with every institution and mode of life in principle I could never be content just to consider the immediate stemming from the bourgeois world. This would help to foster state of affairs i would have to seek out those often-concealed an undistorted class consciousness in the vanguard, in the Com- mediations that had produced the situation and above all i would unist parties and in the Communist youth organisations. My have to strive to anticipate the factors that would probably polemical essay attacking the idea of participation in bourgeois result from them and influence future praxis. I found myself dopting an intellectual attitude dictated by life itself, that at the hands of Lenin-enabled me to take my first step away conflicted sharply with the idealism and utopianism of my from sectarianism. Lenin pointed to the vital distinction, indeed revolutionary messianism. to the paradox, that an institution may be obsolete from the was made even more acute by the fact that standpoint of world history-as e.g. the soviets had rendered opposed to me within the leadership of the Hungarian Party parliaments obsolete--but that this need not preclude participa- was the group led by Zinoviev's disciple, Bela Kun, who subscribed tion in it for tactical reasons; on the contrary. I at once saw the to a sectarianism of a modern bureaucratic type. In theory force of this criticism and it compelled me to revise my historical it would have been possible to repudiate his views as those of a perspectives and to adjust them more subtly and less directly to pseudo-leftist. In practice, however, his proposals could only be the exigencies of day-to-day tactics. In this respect it was the combated by an appeal to the highly prosaic realities of ordinary beginning of a change in my views. Nevertheless this change life that were but distantly related to the larger perspectives of took place within the framework of an essentially sectarian out- the world revolution. At this point in my life, as so often, I look. This became evident a year later when, uncritically, and a stroke of luck: the ition to bela Kun was headed by eugen in the spirit of sectarianism, i gave my approval to the march Landler. He was notable not only for his great and above al Action as a whole, even though I was critical of a number of actical errors practical intelligence but also for his understanding of theoretical problems so long as they were linked, however indirectly, with It is at this point that the objective internal contradictions the praxis of revolution. He was a man whose most deeply- in my political and philosophical views come into the open. On rooted attitudes were determined by his intimate involvement in the international scene I was able to indulge all my intellectual the life of the masses. His protest against Kun's bureaucratic assion for revolutionary messianism unhindered. But in Hungary, and adventurist projects convinced me at once, and when it ith the gradual emergence of an organised Communist move came to an open breach i was always on his side. It is not possible ment, I found myself increasingly having to face decisions whose to go into even the most important details of these inner party general and personal, long-term and immediate consequences struggles here, although there are some matters of theoretical in could not ignore and which I had to make the basis of yet terest. As far as i was concerned the breach meant that the meth- further decisions. This had already been my position in the oviet Republic in Hungary. There the need to consider other odological cleavage in my thought now developed into a division between theory and practice. while I continued to support ultra- than messianic perspectives had often forced me into realistic left tendencies on the great international problems of revolution, as decisions both in the People's Commissariat for Education and a member of the leadership of the Hungarian Party I became the in the division where I was in charge politically. Now, however, the confrontation with the facts, the compulsion to search for ost bitter enemy of Kun's sectarianism. This became particularly what Lenin called 'the next link in the chain became incompar obvious early in 1921. On the Hungarian front I followed Landler in advocating an energetic anti-sectarian line while simultaneously ably more urgent and intensive than ever before in my life. Precisely because the actual substance of such decisions seemed at the international level I gave theoretical support to the March so empirical it had far-reaching consequences for my theoretical Action. with this the tension between the conflicting tendencies reached a climax. As the divisions in the Hungarian Party became position. For this had now to be adjusted to objective situations nore acute, as the movement of the radical workers in Hungary and tendencies. If I wished to arrive at a decision that was cor began to grow, my ideas were increasingly influenced by the
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION (1967) theoretical tendencies brought into being by these events. How- The very names of the representatives of this tendency indicate ever, they did not yet gain the upper hand at this stage despite that it is not a clearly definable trend. I myself knew of Lunachar the fact that Lenin,s criticism had undermined my analysis of sky only by name and I always rejected Max Adler as a Kantian he March Action. and a Social Democrat. Despite this a close examination reveals History and Class Consciousness was born in the midst of the that they have a number of features in common. On the one hand crises of this transitional period. It was written in 1922. It con- it is demonstrable that it is the materialist view of nature that isted in part of earlier texts in a revised form; in addition to brings about the really radical separation of the bourgeois and those already mentioned there was the essay on Class Consciousness socialist outlooks. The failure to grasp this blurs philosophical of 1920. The two essays on Rosa Luxemburg and Legality and debate and e.g. prevents the clear elaboration of the Marxist illegality were included in the new collection without sigmificant concept of praxis. On the other hand, this apparent methodo- alterations. Only two studies, the most important ones, were logical upgrading of societal categories distorts their true epis- wholly new: Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat and temological functions. Their specific Marxist quality is weakened Towards a Methodology of the Problem of Organisation, (The latter nd their real advance on bourgeois thought is often retracted was based on Organisational Problems of the Revolutionary Movement, an essay that had appeared in the magazine The International I must confine myself here to a critique of History and Class in 1921 immediately after the March Action. )History and Class Consciousness, but this is not to imply that this deviation from Consciousness is, then, the final synthesis of the period of my devel- Marxism was less pronounced in the case of other writers with opment that began with the last years of the war. However, it is a similar outlook. In my book this deviation has immediate also in part the start of a transitional stage leading to a greater consequences for the view of economics i give there and funda clarity, even though these tendencies could not mature properl mental confusions result, as in the nature of the case econonIcs This unresolved conflict between opposed intellectual trends must be crucial. It is true that the attempt is made to explain all which cannot always be easily labelled victorious or defeated ideological phenomena by reference to their basis in economics makes it difficult even now to give a coherent critique of the book. but, despite this, the purview of economics is narrowed down However, the attempt must be made to isolate at least the domi because its basic Marxist category, labour as the mediator of nant motifs. The book's most striking feature is that, contrary to the metabolic interaction between society and nature, is missing. the subjective intentions of its author, objectively it falls in with Given my basic approach, such a consequence is quite natural. a tendency in the history of Marxism that has taken many view of the world disappear and the attempt to deduce th they like it or not and irrespective of their philosophical origins fashion as possible is deprived of a genuinely economic founda- to view Marxism exclusively as ion. It is self-evident that this means the disappearance of a theory of society, as social philosophy, and hence to ignore or the ontological objectivity of nature upon which this process of repudiate it as a theory of nature Even before World War I change is based. But it also means the disappearance of the inter- Marxists as far apart as Max Adler and Lunacharsky defended action between labour as seen from a genuinely materialist iews of this kind. In our day we find them emerging once more, standpoint and the evolution of the men who labour. Marxs above all in French Existentialism and its intellectual ambience- great insight that"even production for the sake of production probably due in part to the influence of History and Class Conscious means nothing more than the development of the productive energi ness. My book takes up a very definite stand on this issue. I argue elopment of the wealth of human nature as an end in a number of places that nature is a societal category and the the terrain which History and Class Conscious- whole drift of the book tends to show that only a knowledge of ole to Capitalist exploitation thus loses its objective ociety and the men who live in it is of relevance to philosophy revolutionary aspect and there is a failure to grasp the fact that
XvIll HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION( 1967) 'although this evolution of the species Man is accomplished at employers". Hence, what I had inten objectively, and what first at the expense of the majority of individual human beings Lenin had arrived at as the result of an authentic Marxist and of certain human classes, it finally overcomes this antagonism of a practical movement, was transformed in my account into a and coincides with the evolution of the particular individual. purely intellectual result and thus into something contemplative. Thus the higher development of individuality is only purchased In my presentation it would indeed be a miracle if this imputed by a historical process in which individuals are sacrificed. 4Ir consciousness could turn into revolutionary praxis. consequence,my account of the contradictions of capitalism his transformation into its opposite of what was in itself a cor as well as of the revolutionisation of the proletariat is uninten- ect intention follows from the abstract and idealistic conception tionally coloured by an overriding subjectivism. of praxis already referred to. This is seen clearly in the-once This has a narrowing and distorting effect on the book's again not wholly misguided--polemic against Engels who had central concept of praxis. with regard to this problem, too, my looked to experiment and industry for the typical cases in which tention was to base myself on Marx and to free his concepts oves to be a criterion of theory. i have since come to from every subsequent bourgeois distortion and to adapt them to at Engels'thesis is theoretically incomplete in that it the requirements of the great revolutionary upsurge of the present. the fact that the terrain of praxis while remaining un changed in its basic structure has become much more extensive, purely contemplative nature of bourgeois thought had to be more complex and more mediated than in the case of work. For this reason the mere act of producing an object may indeed Axis in this book takes on extravagant overtones that are more become the foundation of the immediately correct realisation of a theoretical assumption. To this extent it can serve as a criterion ist left than with authentic Marxist doctrine. Comprehensibly of its truth or falsity However, the task that Engels imposes here enough in the context of the period, I attacked the bourgeoi ate praxis of putting an er and opportunistic currents in the workers'movement that glori- the 'intangible thing-in-itself"is far from being solved. For work fied a conception of knowledge which was ostensibly objective tself can easily remain a matter of pure manipulation, spontane- but was in fact isolated from any sort of praa over-extension and usly or consciously by-passing the solution to the problem of the justice I directed my polemics against th over-valuation of contemplation. Marxs critique of Feuerbach thing-in-itself and ignoring it either wholly or in part. History only reinforced my convictions. What I failed to realise, however, aken on the basis of false theories and in Engels' sense these was that in the absence of a basis in real praxis, in labour as its cases imply a failure to understand the thing-in-itself. Indeed the riginal form and model, the over-extension of the concept of Kantian theory itself in no way denies that experiments of this would lead to its oppo kind are objective and provide valuable knowledge. He only templation. My intention, then, was to chart the correct and relegates them to the realm of mere appearances in which things authentic class consciousness of the proletariat, distinguishing in-themselves remain unknown, And the neo-positivism of our it from public opinion surveys'(a term not yet in currency wn day aims at removing every question about reality (the and to confer upon it an indisputably practical objectivity. I was ng-in-itself) from the purview of science, it rejects every question unable, however, to progress beyond the notion of an imputed about the thing-in-itself as 'unscientific' and at the [zugerechnet] class ce this I it acknowledges the validity of all the conclusions of technology thing as Lenin in What is to be do hen he maintained that nd science. Ifpraxis is to fulfI the function Engels rightly assigned socialist class consciousness would differ from the spontaneously to i, it must go beyond this immediacy while remaining praxis emerging trade-union consciousness in that it would be implanted and developing into a cor in the workers 'from outside, i.e. "from outside the economic My objections to Engels'solution were not without found: truggle and the sphere of the orkers All the more mistaken was my chain of argument. It was