HISTORY ANDCLASSCONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION (1967) ion and how far it pointed towards the future. The con- this stage in its class consciousness, thus becoming the identical temporary reader who is qualified to criticise will certainly find subject-object of history. This does indeed appear to 'stand Hegel evidence of both tendencies. To assess the impact of the book on his feet'; it appears as if the logico-metaphysical construction at that time, and also its relevance today, we must consider one of the Phenomenology of Mind had found its authentic realisation in problem that surpasses in its importance all questions of detail. the existence and the consciousness of the proletariat. And this This is the question of alienation, which, for the first time smy appears in turn to provide a philosophical foundation for the Marx, is treated as central to the revolutionary critique of capita proletariat,'s efforts to form a classless society through revolution ism and which has its theoretical and methodological roots in the and to conclude the 'prehistory'of mankind. But is the identical Hegelian dialectic. Of course the problem was in the air at the subject-object here anything more in truth than a purely metaphy time. Some years later, following the publication of Heidegger's sical construct? Can a genuinely identical subject-object be Being and Time(1927), it moved into the centre of philosophical de- bate. Even today it has not lost this position, largely because of the based on an adequate knowledge of society, i.e. however perfect influence of Sartre, his followers and his opponents. The philo that self-knowledge is? We need only formulate the sophical problem raised above all by Lucien Goldmann when he precisely to see that it must be answered in the negative For even interpreted Heidegger's work in part as a polemical reply to when the content of knowledge is referred back to the knowing mine--which however was not mentioned explicitly-can be subject, this does not mean that the act of cognition is thereby freed of its alienated nature. In the Phenomenology of Mind Hegel air is perfectly adequate, particularly as it is not possible to discuss rightly dismisses the notion of a mystical and irrationalistic the reasons for this here and to lay bare the mixture of Marxist realisation of the identical subject-object, of Schelling's intellec- and Existentialist ideas that were so infuential after World War tual intuition, calling instead for a philosophical and rational Il, especially in France. The question of who was first and who solution to the problem. His healthy sense of reality induced nfuenced whom is not particularly interesting here. What is him to leave the matter at this juncture; his very general system nportant is that the alienation of man is a crucial problem of the does indeed culminate in the vision of such a realisation but he age in which we live and is recognised as such by both bourgeon never shows in concrete terms how it might be achieved. Thus and proletarian thinkers, by commentators on both right and the proletariat seen as the identical subject-object of the real left. Hence History and Class Consciousness had a profound impac history of mankind is no materialist consummation that over- in youthful intellectual circles; I know of a whole host of good comes the constructions of idealism. It is rather an attempt to Communists who were won over to the movement by this very out-Hegel Hegel, it is an edifice boldly erected above every fact, Without a doubt the fact that this Marxist and Hegelian ossible reality and thus attempts objectively to surpass the question was taken up by a Communist was one reason why the Master himself. pact of the book went far beyond the limits of the party. Hegel's reluctance to commit himself on this point is As to the way in which the problem was actually dealt with, it of the wrong-headedness of his basic concept. For it is in Hegel is not hard to see today that it was treated in purely Hegelian that we first encounter alienation as the fundamental probler terms. In particular its ultimate philosophical foundation is of the place of man in the world and ois-d-vis the world. However, the identical subject-object that realises itself in the historical in the term alienation he includes every type of objectification. process. Of course, in Hegel it arises in a purely logical and Thus 'alienation'when taken to its logical conclusion is identical philosophical form when the highest stage of absolute spirit is objectification. Therefore, when attained in philosophy by abolishing alienation and by the return object transcends alienation it must also transcend objectification of self-consciousness to itself, thus realising the identical subject at the same time. But as, according to Hegel, the object, the thing object. In History and Class Consciousness, however, this process is exists only as an alienation from self-consciousness, to take it socio-historical and it culminates when th oletariat reaches back into the subject would mean the end of objective reality