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Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study
"Marxism" presents an authoritative, analytic survey of the course of Marxism, from its origins in the late eighteenth century through the post-World War II period. A classic of political history, this work is the culminating achievement of one of the leading historians of socialism.
412 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1982
About the author
George Lichtheim
43 books3 followers George Lichtheim (1912-1973) was a German-born intellectual whose works focused on the history and theory of socialism and Marxism. He defined himself as a socialist and stated in a 1964 letter to the New York Review of Books that "I am not a liberal and never have been. I find liberalism almost as boring as communism and have no wish to be drawn into an argument over which of these two antiquated creeds is less likely to advance us any further."
His work appeared in the Palestine Post, Commentary, Partisan Review, Dissent, the New Leader, Encounter, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books. Additionally, he translated Gershom Scholem's Main Currents in Jewish Mysticism. His death was by suicide.
His work appeared in the Palestine Post, Commentary, Partisan Review, Dissent, the New Leader, Encounter, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books. Additionally, he translated Gershom Scholem's Main Currents in Jewish Mysticism. His death was by suicide.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 9, 2020
Lichtheim is an absolute monster of a scholar: he is brief, he is thorough, and he is very judgmental. He leaves practically nobody off freely in this history of Marxist thought, from Marx himself & his own difficulty solving the value-price transformation to the abortion of CCCP "philosophy" in the heyday of the Soviet Union. That said, he knows what he's doing: he can succinctly explain Hegel, for one impressive feat of writing, and consistently demonstrates mastery of the whole of Marx's thought and method across politics, sociology, economics, and history, as well as the subject's even vaster secondary literature.
The book's subtitle is An Historical and Critical Study, and those two subjects indeed not only form the nexus of Lichtheim's approach but constitute the fundamental aspects of Marxism. Lichtheim interprets the young Marx's writings as a critical theory of society above and before being a science of history or economics (yes, you should keep in mind that Lichtheim considered himself a Critical Theorist). This is significant in that it ameliorates the dated aspects of Marx's work: he was critiquing the society of his era with the assumption that a revolution was coming that would change the world. This proceeds dialectically: the theorists critique society & point the revolution at particular problems, the mass of revolutionaries do their thing & reshape society, theorists critique *that* new society and try to point the next revolution in the right direction to get rid of the newly-uncovered dangers, and so on. Historically, Lichtheim argues that Marx's critical theory did quite a good job: his early work emphasized securing democracy, the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848 occurred just after the publication of The Communist Manifesto, and these revolutions indeed were to a degree shaped by his critical theory & brought democracy to large swatches of Europe. Obviously, they didn't lead to communism, but that's not necessarily a falsification of Marx's theory, as we find out.
Lichtheim interprets young Marx as essentially a theorist of human freedom: Men have control over the world, but only to the degree that they have control over themselves. If your life and environment is not under your own control, you do not have free will and you are not free. Free will & genuine human freedom only exists if humans genuinely have power over what they do and what their environment is like; "making man sovereign over his circumstances," in Lichtheim's words (p. 237). Critical thought is only validated insofar as it is coupled to revolutionary action in the same period. This is a far cry from the later epistemology of Engels, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin, and so on, where Marxism is Darwinized and treated as a science which objectively reveals the truth of the world in the past, present, and future; these men were practicing a science, not a theory, and considered it essentially historically-complete. 'Scientific socialism' apprehends the world in its entirety rather than merely the parts that affect humans and their society; it discovered that communism is historically-guaranteed rather than just possible; it has already predicted and divined the revolution & its goals before there is the slightest sign of any revolution. Although Marxist-Leninists today deride 'unscientific,' 'utopian,' and 'idealist' thinking, the young Marx found that "there are no 'ideals' that cannot be realised, for the emergence of new aims is itself an index to the presence of forces which make for their realisation" (p. 239).
Keeping to his own prescriptions, Lichtheim's own critiques of Marxism & its later descendants are themselves rather dated, a product of this book's being published in 1961. He indulges heavily in the notion of totalitarianism when critiquing official CCCP ideology & comparing it to Lukacs & Gramsci, a concept which has gone out of style today. Similarly, his interpretation of the shortcomings in Marx's economics are very much the product of a pre-neoliberal world: in 2019, the bourgeoisie have found new sources of finance that Lichtheim glosses over, and have reverted to a more classically-ruthless increasing rate exploitation that they evidently hadn't found necessary during the Cold War. That being said, Lichtheim is adamant that the conservative and bourgeois critiques of Marx (again, minus the price-value transformation, which he thinks Marx left fragmentary & unclear in Capital, Vol. 3: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole) have very little merit: the pauperization of the working class is neither necessary nor guaranteed by Marx, his mature critique of political economy probably shouldn't let bourgeois economists derive prices since he's interested in making that Not A Thing, and if one is interested in explaining how capitalism begins & then sociologically functions, his critique still works even if you reject the labor theory of value (which Lichtheim views as a handicap of sorts that Marx is saddled with because of his position in the tradition of classical political economy & his necessary use of Ricardo, Smith, & so on).
After the critique of Marxian economics, Lichtheim observes Marx's successors & their eventual total abandonment of critical theory & its union with revolutionary practice. He has lots to say about pretty much every important Marxist from Marx's death to 1917; he's positive towards some (like Hilferding & Sweezy), partly-approving-with-the-caveat-that-they-were-definitely-wrong-about-X-Y-and-Z (like Luxemburg), and very negative towards some (he really doesn't like Lenin, whom he sees as barely even a Marxist). These are all of course carefully historically-situated & then critiqued in the light of history, like he does throughout the book; such chapters are useful to scholars because they attempt to answer where, when, and why the unique Marxian synthesis dissolved. He then concludes the book by looking at the sorry state of affairs in the 60s, wondering whether we can properly be said to still live in a class society (with as clear, accurate, and sufficient a definition of what class means in Marx's terms as any you'll find), and reaffirming the necessity of critique. The triumph of Lenin & the modern cold war can be fairly said to have demolished the world of Marx, just as Marx was aiming to do, but hasn't (yet) produced anything resembling communism. Does this prove Marx was wrong? Not at all: it shows he saw just what mattered most.
"In the sunset of the liberal era, of which Marxism is at once
the critique and the theoretical reflection, this outcome confirms the
truth of its own insights into the logic of history; while transferring
to an uncertain future the ancient vision of a world set free."
(p. 406, the book's final sentence)
To a certain degree, history lets us see that Lichtheim falls prey to his own critical method: the book was critical theory meant specifically for use in 1961, & his reading of what's still useful or true about Marx is colored both by the circumstances of that period and his own tendentious spats with Soviet Marxists and bourgeois economists. Nevertheless, the history is thoughtful & fair and his argument for Marxism as a critical theory rather than a science is logical and compelling. As we know, history does not proceed linearly; Lichtheim would be all too happy to learn that Marx is even more relevant & accurate now than he was in his own time.
The book's subtitle is An Historical and Critical Study, and those two subjects indeed not only form the nexus of Lichtheim's approach but constitute the fundamental aspects of Marxism. Lichtheim interprets the young Marx's writings as a critical theory of society above and before being a science of history or economics (yes, you should keep in mind that Lichtheim considered himself a Critical Theorist). This is significant in that it ameliorates the dated aspects of Marx's work: he was critiquing the society of his era with the assumption that a revolution was coming that would change the world. This proceeds dialectically: the theorists critique society & point the revolution at particular problems, the mass of revolutionaries do their thing & reshape society, theorists critique *that* new society and try to point the next revolution in the right direction to get rid of the newly-uncovered dangers, and so on. Historically, Lichtheim argues that Marx's critical theory did quite a good job: his early work emphasized securing democracy, the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848 occurred just after the publication of The Communist Manifesto, and these revolutions indeed were to a degree shaped by his critical theory & brought democracy to large swatches of Europe. Obviously, they didn't lead to communism, but that's not necessarily a falsification of Marx's theory, as we find out.
Lichtheim interprets young Marx as essentially a theorist of human freedom: Men have control over the world, but only to the degree that they have control over themselves. If your life and environment is not under your own control, you do not have free will and you are not free. Free will & genuine human freedom only exists if humans genuinely have power over what they do and what their environment is like; "making man sovereign over his circumstances," in Lichtheim's words (p. 237). Critical thought is only validated insofar as it is coupled to revolutionary action in the same period. This is a far cry from the later epistemology of Engels, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin, and so on, where Marxism is Darwinized and treated as a science which objectively reveals the truth of the world in the past, present, and future; these men were practicing a science, not a theory, and considered it essentially historically-complete. 'Scientific socialism' apprehends the world in its entirety rather than merely the parts that affect humans and their society; it discovered that communism is historically-guaranteed rather than just possible; it has already predicted and divined the revolution & its goals before there is the slightest sign of any revolution. Although Marxist-Leninists today deride 'unscientific,' 'utopian,' and 'idealist' thinking, the young Marx found that "there are no 'ideals' that cannot be realised, for the emergence of new aims is itself an index to the presence of forces which make for their realisation" (p. 239).
Keeping to his own prescriptions, Lichtheim's own critiques of Marxism & its later descendants are themselves rather dated, a product of this book's being published in 1961. He indulges heavily in the notion of totalitarianism when critiquing official CCCP ideology & comparing it to Lukacs & Gramsci, a concept which has gone out of style today. Similarly, his interpretation of the shortcomings in Marx's economics are very much the product of a pre-neoliberal world: in 2019, the bourgeoisie have found new sources of finance that Lichtheim glosses over, and have reverted to a more classically-ruthless increasing rate exploitation that they evidently hadn't found necessary during the Cold War. That being said, Lichtheim is adamant that the conservative and bourgeois critiques of Marx (again, minus the price-value transformation, which he thinks Marx left fragmentary & unclear in Capital, Vol. 3: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole) have very little merit: the pauperization of the working class is neither necessary nor guaranteed by Marx, his mature critique of political economy probably shouldn't let bourgeois economists derive prices since he's interested in making that Not A Thing, and if one is interested in explaining how capitalism begins & then sociologically functions, his critique still works even if you reject the labor theory of value (which Lichtheim views as a handicap of sorts that Marx is saddled with because of his position in the tradition of classical political economy & his necessary use of Ricardo, Smith, & so on).
After the critique of Marxian economics, Lichtheim observes Marx's successors & their eventual total abandonment of critical theory & its union with revolutionary practice. He has lots to say about pretty much every important Marxist from Marx's death to 1917; he's positive towards some (like Hilferding & Sweezy), partly-approving-with-the-caveat-that-they-were-definitely-wrong-about-X-Y-and-Z (like Luxemburg), and very negative towards some (he really doesn't like Lenin, whom he sees as barely even a Marxist). These are all of course carefully historically-situated & then critiqued in the light of history, like he does throughout the book; such chapters are useful to scholars because they attempt to answer where, when, and why the unique Marxian synthesis dissolved. He then concludes the book by looking at the sorry state of affairs in the 60s, wondering whether we can properly be said to still live in a class society (with as clear, accurate, and sufficient a definition of what class means in Marx's terms as any you'll find), and reaffirming the necessity of critique. The triumph of Lenin & the modern cold war can be fairly said to have demolished the world of Marx, just as Marx was aiming to do, but hasn't (yet) produced anything resembling communism. Does this prove Marx was wrong? Not at all: it shows he saw just what mattered most.
"In the sunset of the liberal era, of which Marxism is at once
the critique and the theoretical reflection, this outcome confirms the
truth of its own insights into the logic of history; while transferring
to an uncertain future the ancient vision of a world set free."
(p. 406, the book's final sentence)
To a certain degree, history lets us see that Lichtheim falls prey to his own critical method: the book was critical theory meant specifically for use in 1961, & his reading of what's still useful or true about Marx is colored both by the circumstances of that period and his own tendentious spats with Soviet Marxists and bourgeois economists. Nevertheless, the history is thoughtful & fair and his argument for Marxism as a critical theory rather than a science is logical and compelling. As we know, history does not proceed linearly; Lichtheim would be all too happy to learn that Marx is even more relevant & accurate now than he was in his own time.
September 29, 2020
Extremely Thorough work on the History and development of the Marxist movement. Amazing how contemporary his work feels seeing as it was written only in 1960. He sidesteps no issues and debates up to 1917. Many figures are addressed in a backhanded manner I feel for example how Lichteim treats Engels as some sort of bumbling buffoon and as the starting point for where Marxism all went wrong.
Surprisingly Lenin isn't totally torn to shreds and Lichteim notices a crucial unity of theory and practice in Lenin. He treats Luxembourg in poor fashion and in a footnote ascribes her ideas of spontaneity as typically feminine! Has an ending that is both interesting and confronting. Both liberalism and Marxism have no real purchase today because Bourgeois society which Marx took for the object of his critique has crumbled post 1914 and in many ways Marx and Mill both are tied closer together than any of either of the figures followers will admit .
Surprisingly Lenin isn't totally torn to shreds and Lichteim notices a crucial unity of theory and practice in Lenin. He treats Luxembourg in poor fashion and in a footnote ascribes her ideas of spontaneity as typically feminine! Has an ending that is both interesting and confronting. Both liberalism and Marxism have no real purchase today because Bourgeois society which Marx took for the object of his critique has crumbled post 1914 and in many ways Marx and Mill both are tied closer together than any of either of the figures followers will admit .
July 31, 2023
I get why the Leninist wing of the contemporary left wouldn't like this book. Lichtheim has little love for the whole Soviet experiment. Indeed, as much as he respects Marx, the respect starts to waver at Engels's later systematisation of Marxist ideas. Perhaps most surprising for me was the author's condemnation of Gramsci, who is often treated as a poster boy for democratic socialism. Lichtheim interprets him the opposite way and I'm not sure I can agree. Otherwise, the writing combines the best of intellectual history, but combining it always with the structural context of ideas. There's a lot to learn from Lichtheim's way of building the theoretical and historical narrative--even if you can't follow him all the way politically.
December 19, 2023
This book is an amalgam: not pure history, not pure discussions of doctrine, but a inquisitive survey that covers both history and doctrine with a strong dollop of the author's own analysis. It is well-written but can be hard to follow because Lichtheim assumes that the reader has a degree of background that most people lack. Even though I'm moderately well educated in European history and philosophy, I was left perplexed by many passages about Kant's philosophy or about the details of economic debates among leftists. Luckily, we have the Internet now to fill gaps in our education.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews