Work · Socialism, Anarchism, Marxism & Critical Theory
Main Currents of Marxism
Three volumes (1976–78) on the origins, golden age and breakdown of Marxism, from its roots in Neoplatonism and Hegel to Stalinism and its critics.
Introduction
Completed in Oxford, the Polish original appeared in three volumes with the émigré Instytut Literacki in Paris (1976–78) and the English translation by P. S. Falla in 1978; in Poland it circulated in underground editions before 1989. The first volume traces the roots of Marx’s thought in Neoplatonic and Christian ideas of salvation, in Hegel and the Young Hegelians; the second covers the “golden age” of the Second International, from Kautsky and Luxemburg to Lenin; the third describes Stalinism and the later currents, from Trotsky, Lukács and the Frankfurt School to Mao. Kołakowski’s thesis is that Marx’s promise of a perfect unity of human beings contained the seed of its despotic realisation. Critics found the book partial towards Western Marxism and too ready to read Marx through his political outcome.
Connections
Criticizes
- Capital1867 · Karl Marx
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