S. D. V. Stephens

notes / Critical Theory / week 1: Introduction

2 Marxism in Transition

Where we are

Critical theory, in our sense, is the work of the Institute for Social Research, the Institut für Sozialforschung (in-stee-TOOT fewr zoh-TSYAHL-for-shoong; /ɪnstiˈtuːt fyːɐ̯ zoˈtsi̯aːlˌfɔʁʃʊŋ/), from 1923 on. It draws on three sources at once: German Idealism from Kant to Hegel (HAY-gel; /ˈheːɡl̩/), Marxism, and psychoanalysis. And as we read it we should keep asking the question from last time: is this theory mystifying its object, or demystifying it?

The generations again: first Horkheimer (HORK-hy-mer; /ˈhɔʁkhaɪ̯mɐ/), Adorno, Marcuse (mar-KOO-zeh; /maʁˈkuːzə/), Fromm, Pollock, Löwenthal (LUR-ven-tahl; /ˈløːvn̩taːl/); second, Habermas (HAH-ber-mahss; /ˈhaːbɐmaːs/); third, Honneth (HON-et; /ˈhɔnət/), Fraser, Benhabib; and the newest, Jaeggi (YEH-gee; /ˈjɛɡi/), Forst, Celikates, Saar.

Today’s task is to see the world that critical theory was born into: a socialist movement that split in two.

The great schism, 1905–1917

Socialism in dispute

Behind every quarrel in the socialist movement of these years lies one problem: the consciousness of the working class. Marx expected the workers to come to see their situation and change it. What if they don’t? Three answers competed.

  • Party vanguardism, the Marxism-Leninism of the Bolsheviks: the workers will not get there on their own, so a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries must lead them.
  • Socialist revisionism, associated with Eduard Bernstein (BAIRN-shtine; /ˈbɛʁnʃtaɪ̯n/): revolution is not coming; socialism will arrive gradually, through reforms won within parliamentary democracy.
  • Working-class spontaneity, associated with Rosa Luxemburg (LOOK-sem-boork; /ˈlʊksəmbʊʁk/): the masses learn in struggle, in strikes and uprisings, and revolutionary consciousness grows from their own action rather than from a party’s instructions.

The war and the split: nationalism or internationalism?

From 1905 to 1914 Europe’s socialist parties argued over rearmament, and in August 1914 most of them voted for their own nations’ war. Internationalism lost to nationalism. In Germany this split the movement: the mainstream Social Democrats (SPD) on one side, and on the other the Independent Socialists (USPD), out of whose left wing came the Spartacists and, after the war, the German Communist Party (KPD).

The Russian Revolution, 1917

In 1917 the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, at first alongside the workers’ councils, the “soviets.” Over the following years the Communist Party gradually consolidated power in its own hands, and the line runs from Lenin and his circle to Stalin.

Marxism in transition: ideology and idea

The postwar situation

Germany’s defeat brought the founding of the Weimar (VY-mar; /ˈvaɪ̯maʁ/) Republic, and the revolutionary hopes of 1918 and 1919 failed: the Bavarian Socialist Republic, for one, was put down within weeks.

Soviet ideology and Western theory

From here two Marxisms go their separate ways. In the Soviet sphere the party tends toward authoritarianism and censorship and, in the end, Stalin’s dictatorship, and Marxism hardens into state dogma: “dialectical materialism,” a doctrine to be repeated. In the West, socialist parties work inside parliamentary systems, and Marxism develops into a diverse intellectual movement. Three books mark the moment:

  • Ernst Bloch (BLOKH; /blɔx/), The Spirit of Utopia (1918);
  • Karl Korsch (KORSH; /kɔʁʃ/), Marxism and Philosophy (1923);
  • Georg Lukács (LOO-kahch; /ˈlukaːtʃ/), History and Class Consciousness (1923).

The rebirth of Hegelian, or “Western,” Marxism

Why the dialectic matters

To see what Lukács did, we need the Hegelian background of Marx himself, which is a story of the young Marx and the later Marx.

For Hegel, history is the work of spirit, Geist (GUYST; /ɡaɪ̯st/): the collective life of human reason, coming over time to understand itself and to make a world in which it is at home. Marx keeps the shape of this story and changes its subject. History becomes the self-realization of humanity, and the medium of that self-realization is labor. We make ourselves by making our world.

Marx came to Hegel by way of Ludwig Feuerbach (FOY-er-bahkh; /ˈfɔɪ̯ɐbax/), the most prominent of the “Left Hegelians.” Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity (1841) had argued that God is humanity’s own essence, projected outward and then worshipped as something alien: the more human God becomes, the more of themselves human beings have put into him. Marx takes this structure of self-alienation and applies it to work.

He did so most clearly in the Paris Manuscripts of 1844, the “Left Hegelian” phase of his thinking. In working on the objective world, Marx says, the human being proves itself a species-being, a Gattungswesen (GAH-toongs-vay-zen; /ˈɡatʊŋsˌveːzn̩/): through production, nature appears as our work and our reality, and we see ourselves in a world we have created. Under capitalism this goes wrong. The more the worker produces, the more powerful the alien world of objects he creates over against himself, and the poorer his inner world becomes. It is, Marx says, the same in religion: “The more man puts into God, the less he retains in himself.”

The later Marx, in Capital, describes the same loss in the language of political economy. Every means of developing production becomes a means of dominating and exploiting the producer; it turns the worker into a fragment of a human being, “a mere appendage of the machine,” and turns his whole life into labor-time. (The full passages, from the 1844 manuscripts and from chapter 25 of Capital, are on the back of the handout.)

Lukács and the turn to Hegelian dialectics

Lukács’s “What Is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919, collected in History and Class Consciousness in 1923) is our reading, and its claims are startling for a communist of 1919:

  • Orthodox Marxism is not a doctrine but a method. One could reject every one of Marx’s individual theses and still be an orthodox Marxist, so long as one holds to the method.
  • That method is the dialectic, and the heart of the dialectic is the idea of totality: no fact means anything on its own; it means something only as a moment of the whole social process.
  • The working class is to become the subject and the object of history at once: the class that history is made of, and the class that knows itself as its maker.
  • So the crucial factor is consciousness and self-recognition. That is where we pick up next time.
Handout outline (Professor Gordon)

I. Introduction

  • A. Definitions and strategies for reading
    • critical theory: the Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung): 1923–
    • multidisciplinary sources: German Idealism (Kant to Hegel), Marxism, psychoanalysis
    • advice for reading: mystification or demystification?
  • B. Generations of critical theory
    • first generation: Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Fromm, Pollock, Löwenthal, etc.
    • second generation: Habermas, etc.
    • third generation: Honneth, Fraser, Benhabib, etc.
    • the newest generation: Jaeggi, Forst, Celikates, Saar, etc.

II. The emergence of the great schism, 1905–1917

  • A. Socialism in dispute
    • the general problem of working-class consciousness
    • party vanguardism: Marxist-Leninism
    • socialist revisionism: Eduard Bernstein
    • working-class spontaneity: Rosa Luxemburg
  • B. WWI and the great schism: nationalism or internationalism?
    • 1905–1914: debates over rearmament and the split in Europe’s socialist parties
    • the split between the mainstream SPD and the independent socialists (USPD) (Spartacists and postwar KPD)
  • C. The Russian Revolution, 1917
    • the Bolsheviks and the workers’ councils or “Soviets”
    • gradual consolidation of power in Russia by the Communist Party
    • Lenin and his circle: from Leninism to Stalinism

III. Marxism in transition: ideology and idea

  • A. The postwar European situation
    • Germany’s defeat and the founding of the Weimar Republic
    • the failure of the Bavarian Socialist Republic
  • B. Soviet ideology and Western theory
    • Soviet party tendencies: authoritarianism, censorship, toward Stalin’s dictatorship
    • Marxism as state dogma: dialectical materialism in the Soviet sphere
    • Western tendencies: socialist parties in parliamentary systems
    • Marxism develops as a diverse intellectual movement, e.g., Ernst Bloch, The Spirit of Utopia (1918); Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy (1923); Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness (1923)

IV. The rebirth of Hegelian or “Western” Marxism

  • A. The significance of the dialectic
    • Marx’s Hegelian origins: the young Marx and the later Marx
    • Hegel’s idea of history as the work of spirit, or Geist
    • Marx’s idea of history as the self-realization of humanity through labor
    • Marx’s enduring Hegelian commitments: via Feuerbach (a prominent “left-Hegelian”)
    • the unknown Paris Manuscripts of 1844: Marx’s “left-Hegelian” phase: alienation [quotes]
  • B. Lukács and the turn to Hegelian dialectics
    • “What Is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919) in History and Class Consciousness (1923)
    • orthodox Marxism not as doctrine but method
    • the dialectic and the idea of totality
    • the working class as the “subject and object” of history
    • the crucial factor: consciousness and self-recognition (next lecture)

On the back: Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844), on labor as the objectification of species-life; Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (1841), on God as humanity’s exteriorized self; the young Marx on alienation; the later Marx on alienation, Capital I, ch. 25, §4.