Sunshine Skyways

Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution, Volume I. The Founders. Leszek Kolakowski. Trans. by P. S. Falla. Oxford University Press, New York. 1978.

Leszek Kolakowski is a Polish philosopher who began his academic career as an orthodox Marxist, but later became disillusioned with Marxism under Stalinism, and by the mid 1950s was one of the most prominent revisionist Marxists in Poland. The outspoken Kolakowski was banned from the party in 1966 and from teaching two years later. Subsequently, he went into exile and began what was to be a series of visiting positions in the United States and Canada until he settled into a permanent position at Oxford University.[1] It is out of these experiences that Kolakowski wrote the three-volume set, Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution to answer the question, "How, and a result of what circumstances, did Marx's philosophy culminate in Stalinism?". This book review concerns Volume I: The Founders, who are Marx and Engels, but mostly Marx.

Kolakowski identifies Marx as a "German philosopher" and as such, he argues that the starting point of an understanding of Marx's writings and Marxism is to be found in Marx's philosophical inquiry about human nature and human phenomenon, which was influenced by Hegel, Feuerbach, and other philosophers dating back to the Neo-Platonists. In so doing, Volume I does what Stalinism viewed with contempt: it pays respect to pre-Marxist philosophers. Specifically, Kolakowski rejects the Stalinist judgment that Marxist philosophy is scientific and, therefore, anything preceding Marxist philosophy is of no essential importance for the understanding of Marxism because it is pre-scientific.[2] Instead, Kolakowski evidences pre-Marxist philosophical conceptions to be essential components of Marx's thought and Marxism.

Kolakowski equally rejects Althusser's claim that a philosophical reading of Capital demonstrates an epistemological break in Marx's thought from its juvenile humanism, Hegelian dialectic, and philosophical theory of history with its utopian ideals, to its mature structuralism, non-Hegelian dialectic, and scientific theory of history devoid of utopianism (Althusser). Kolakowski believes there is continuity in Marx's philosophical thought as evidenced by philosophical conceptions in Capital that are consistent with conceptions in Marx's earlier writings, such as alienation, duality, Hegelian dialectic, and Species-Being.[3]

Volume I presents a challenge for readers without philosophical backgrounds because Kolakowski presumes the reader has basic and, at times, more than basic philosophical knowledge. The first four chapters are complicated and sometimes puzzling descriptions and examinations of pre-Marxist philosophers that influenced both Hegel and Marx, puzzling because at times it is not apparent if the author is summarizing the original philosophies or analyzing their concepts of human nature and human phenomenon from a Hegelian/Marxist or other perspective.

Kolakowski begins his analysis of Pre-Marxist philosophers with the Neo-Platonists, especially the mystical thinker, Plotinus, and highlights their extensive influence on Christian theology and medieval philosophy, which in time influenced the Enlightenment philosophers, Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and others. Kolakowski's descriptions of Plotinus' theories of emanation and individual salvation are sufficient to be understood by a reader with little philosophical training and who has access to an online philosophy dictionary or encyclopedia; however, his subsequent descriptions of the theories' transformations in Christian theology, medieval philosophy, and later philosophies of Hegel and Feuerbach are too sketchty to be understood by those without more sophisticated philosophical training. The problem is mostly due to what could be described as the author's hit-and-run-like rhetorical style of taking a name or concept out of the history of philosophy and inserting it into a sentence without explanation.[4] Consequently, some of Kolakowski's potential insights become lacunae in his argument. For example, although he finds in the Neo-Platonists' concepts of man, dialectic and progress presages of Marx's concepts of Species-Being, dialectic, and progress, that continuity of philosophical thought is not seen or appreciated by readers who are without backgrounds in philosophy.[5]

Volume I demonstrates that although Marx attempted to avoid the dilemma of utopianism versus historical fatalism, he does not, and in part for that reason, Kolakowski charges that Marx's works are not valid guides to social action. [6][7] Furthermore, he shows that Marx's and his co-authored writings with Engels use contradictory concepts, such as those that are steeped in "Promethean humanism" and "utopian idealism" versus structuralism and historical fatalism. [8][9] Consequently, the philosophical contradictions of the founders have resulted in a conflicted Marxian tradition in which various Marxists have aruged that only they know the Truth of Marx's thought, and some of those Marxists have been apologists for the tyranny of Stalinism. Volume I can be understood as a prelude to the author's reaction reaction to that despotism in the subsequent volumes. However, it can also be understood as a prelude to dismissal of Marxism as a whole, and this is unfortunate because Kolakowski does see brilliance in Marx's writings, such as Marx's "principle that men's spiritual and intellectual life is not self-contained and wholly independent but is also an expression of material interests" (p. 371).


ENDNOTES:

1. Kolakowski no longer identifies himself as a Marxist of any kind.
2. The Stalinist (or orthodox Marxist) view of Marxism as a science is illustrated by the following quote:

   Marxism-Leninism is a coherent scientific system of philosophical, economic and socio-political views, and is the world outlook of the international working class, who are called upon to rejuvenate the world on socialist and communist principles. Marxism-Leninism is a science about the cognition and revolutionary transformation of the world, about the laws of development of society, nature and human thinking (Buzuev and Gorodnov, p. 11).

   Because orthodox Marxists categorize Pre-Marxists thinkers as idealists, not scientists, they conclude that it is a mistake for Marxists, who are true to Marxism-Leninism, to find guidance in the writings of Pre-Marxists. That is illustrated in Stalin's statement that "in order not to err in policy, one must look forward, not backward" (Stalin, p. 5).
3. Volume I is not unique in its rejection of the Althusserian claim that the Mature Marx negated the philosophical thought of the Young Marx (van den Berg, Petrovic). Petrovic gives one of the more humorous statements regarding the Young versus Mature Marx debate:

   The 'young' Marx is not a juvenile sin of the 'old' genius, who wrote Capital. Marx's youth was not merely a passing young-Hegelian episode, but a period of which Marx developed the basic philosophical conceptions to which he remained faithful in his later works. Without the 'young' Marx, a full understanding of the 'old' is impossible (p. 13).

4. Because Kolakowski presumes the reader knows the basic history of philosophical thought.
5. Man, according to the Neo-Platonists, is a duality because he is only partly of this world. Although his lower soul is in the physical world, his higher nature is independent of the body and belongs eternally to a divine realm without multiplicity. Consequently, the Neo-Platonists describe man as not knowing his true, primordial self. In order to negate this duality, which was created by a negation -- that is, the negation or emanation of the One, the Neo-Platonists advocated the process of contemplation in the form of dialectical reasoning. Kolakowski aruges that Marx's concepts of the alienated man and "Species Essence" or "Species Being" arise from the Neo-Platonists' view of the duality of man. Both Marx and the Neo-Platonists believe in a higher, not-of-this-world, primordial or non-historical aspect of man. Furthermore, both Marx's dialectic and the Neo-Platonists' dialectic are essentially an historical process of negation of negation that ends with the unity of man and an Absolute. Marx's contention that communism results in man's return to his "Species Essence" -- in which individual human power and interest, particularly creative power to produce use values for oneself, is at one with community production and interest -- is consistent with the Neo-Platonists' belief that contemplation results in man's return to the highest form: the One. However, they differ. For the Neo-Platonists, progress is an individual experience, whereas for Marx, it is a social experience.
6. Recall, that according to Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism is the one and only guide to social policy. Thus, the author continues his attack against the Marxism of Stalinism.
7. Perhaps, as a reading of Borochov suggests, Marx believed he was neither utopian nor fatalist because he did not ignore the historical process and believed that it was man who made his own history. At stated by Borochov:

   Utopianism always suffers because it strives to ignore historical process. Utopianism wishes by means of human endeavor to create something not inherent in social life. Fatalism, on the other hand, assumes that the effective participation of human will is impossible with regard to these historicall processes, and thus it drifts passively with the stream. Utopianism knows of no historical process. The Utopianists fear to mention the phrase 'historical process'; for they see in the so-called historical process fatalism and passivity. The fatalists on the other hand, fear the conscious interference with the historical process as a dangerous artificiality. The fatalists forget that history is made by men who follow definite and conscious aims and purposes only when those aims and purposes are well adapted to the historical necessities of social life.

8. By "Promethean humanism", Kolakowski means secular humanism, which has in part a tradition of defiance dating back to the ancient Greeks. The ancient Greeks idolized Prometheus because he defied the authority of Zeus by stealing the fire of the gods and bringing it down to earth. For that he was punished; yet, he continued as a revolutionary.
9. Hegel's work is steeped in Christian humanism where God is the Revolutionary who perfects man, whereas for Marx, it is the revolutionary philosopher and the proletariat who bring about the ultimate social change.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Althusser, Louis. 1979. "From Capital to Marx's Philosophy" and "The Object of Capital" in Reading Capital, pp. 11-198. Althusser, Louis and Balibar, Etienne. Trans. Ben Brewster. Verso: New York.
2. Buzuev, V. and Gorodnov, V. 1987. What is Marxism-Leninism? Progress Publishers: Moscow.
3. Borochov, Ber. 1906. "Our Platform, parts IV-VI" The Ber Borochov Internet Archive at http://www.angelfire.com/il2/borochov/platform2.html
4. Classical Social Theory class notes, University of Manchester.
5. MacGregor, David. 1980. "Evaluating the Marxist Tradition" in Contemporary Sociology, vol. 9, no. 4, (July), pp. 486-488.
6. Moore, Edward. 2001. "Plotinus (204 - 270 C.E.)" in The Internet Encyclopedia at http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/plotinus.htm
7. Petrovic, Gajo. 1967. Marx in the Mid-Twentieth Century: A Yugoslav Philosopher Reconsiders Karl Marx's Writings. Anchor Books: Garden City, New York.
8. The Radical Academy. http://www.radicalacademy.com
9. Sociology Online. "Marxism & the dialectic" at http://www.sociologyonline.co.uk/soc_essays/marxism1.htm.
10. Stalin, Joseph. 1938. "Dialectical and Historical Materialism." Online at http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/Stalin/works/1938/09.htm
11. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu
12. United States Library of Congress. 2003. "2003 John W. Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences: Leszek Kolakowski" at http://www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/kolakowski.html
13. Van den Berg, Axel. 1988. The Immanent Utopia: From Marxism on the State to the State of Marxism. Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey