Main Currents of Marxism

Mainstream media

Main Currents of Marxism received two positive reviews in Library Journal, the first from Robert C. O'Brien, who reviewed the original English edition, and the second from Francisca Goldsmith, who reviewed the one-volume 2005 edition of the work.^[10][11] The book was also reviewed by the political scientist Michael Harrington in The New Republic,^[12] and the historian Tony Judt in The New York Review of Books.^[13]

O'Brien described the book as a "comprehensive, detailed survey of the development of Marxist doctrine" and a "remarkable work". He credited Kołakowski with showing "the essential continuity of development" of Marx's thought up to its culmination in Capital, and considered his chapters on Lukács, Bloch, Marcuse, the Frankfurt School, and Mao Zedong especially valuable.^[10] Goldsmith credited Kołakowski with discussing Marxism with "thoroughness and lucidity", as well as with "clarity" and "comprehensiveness".^[11]

The philosopher John Gray praised Main Currents of Marxism, calling it "magisterial".^[14]

Academic journals

Main Currents of Marxism received positive reviews from the economist Mark Blaug in Economica,^[15] the historian Martin Jay in The American Historical Review,^[16] the philosopher Sidney Hook in The American Scholar,^[17] and John E. Elliott in the Journal of Economic Issues,^[18] mixed reviews from the sociologist Craig Calhoun in Social Forces,^[19] David Joravsky in Theory & Society,^[20] and Franklin Hugh Adler in The Antioch Review,^[21] and negative reviews from the sociologist Barry Hindess in The Sociological Review and the sociologist Ralph Miliband in Political Studies.^[22][23] The book was also reviewed by William P. Collins in The Journal of Politics,^[24] Ken Plumme in Sociology,^[25] and the philosopher Marx W. Wartofsky in Praxis International.^[26]

Blaug called the book a "brilliant work" that no one interested in the social sciences could neglect. He credited Kołakowski with summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of Marxism, and with showing that "for Marx there is no contradiction between describing the coming of socialism as historically inevitable and prescribing it as the unique mission of the working class". He considered Kołakowski's discussions of historical materialism, Engels's Dialectics of Nature, Kautsky, Georgi Plekhanov, Leninism, Trotsky, Trotskyism, Lukács, Marcuse, and Althusser among the book's outstanding features. However, he concluded that, due to his background as a philosopher, Kołakowski had produced a "lopsided discussion" that treats Marxism primarily as a body of philosophical and political ideas, thereby distorting the pivotal role of economic theory in Marxism. He wrote that there are important elements in Marxian economics which Kołakowski ignored or neglected, including Paul Sweezy's revival of the work of Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz in The Theory of Capitalist Development (1942). He also thought that there were several other subjects which Kołakowski could have given greater attention, including "the controversies over Soviet economic policy in the 1920s". He considered Kołakowski's bibliography excellent, though he was surprised at the exclusion of H. B. Acton's The Illusion of the Epoch and Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies. He praised the quality of Kołakowski's writing, as well as that of its translation.^[15]

Jay described the book as "extraordinarily valuable" and "powerfully written", "an awesome achievement of synthetic scholarship and critical analysis", and a "monument of committed learning". He praised Kołakowski's account of the "origins of dialectic", and his discussion of the philosophical aspects of Marx's theory, though considering them relatively unoriginal. He also praised Kołakowski's discussion of Marxism's economic foundations, and his critique of the labor theory of value. He credited Kołakowski with exposing the fallacies of historical materialism's reliance on the causal power of the economy "in the last resort". However, he criticized Kołakowski's treatment of Lukács, Korsch, Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, Goldmann, and Bloch, calling it "vituperative and ungenerous" and lacking in detachment, though he granted that Kołakowski was aware of this issue. He wrote that while Kołakowski's work contained occasional factual errors or dubious interpretations, there were remarkably few of them considering its length.^[16]

Hook wrote that the book "opened a "new era in Marxist criticism", provided "the most comprehensive treatment of Marx, and of thinkers in the Marxist tradition", and that its publication was "an intellectual event of the first order". He praised Kołakowski's discussion of Polish Marxists, Gramsci, Lukács, the Frankfurt School, the influence of Eduard Bernstein, the failings of modified versions of historical materialism, the influence of Moses Hess on Marxism, the recognition of individuality in "Marx's social ideal", the failure of attempts to resolve contradictions between the first and third volumes of Capital, and the concept of exploitation in Marx. He commended Kołakowski's willingness to do justice to Jean Jaurès humanism despite finding Jaurès's version of Marxism seriously flawed, and his recognition of the merits of "secondary figures" such as Paul Lafargue. He endorsed Kołakowski's view that "Trotsky's doctrines" were no different in essentials from those of Joseph Stalin, and that Stalinism can be justified on Leninist principles. However, he criticized Kołakowski for his treatment of Henri de Man and Waclaw Machajski, and for ignoring Lewis Samuel Feuer's "research on the influence of American utopian socialist colonies on Marx." He was unconvinced by Kołakowski's discussions of the differences between Marx and Engels, and those between Marx and Lenin, and wrote that while Kołakowski agreed with Lukács's reading of Marx, he found it "bizarre". He rejected Kołakowski's view that Marx consistently adhered to "Ludwig Feuerbach's notion of the species nature of man", questioned his view that there is "no essential difference between the early Marx and the Marx of his major published writings", and rejected his view that Marx's historical materialism amounted to a form of technological determinism, as well as his interpretation of Marx's theory of knowledge.^[17]

Elliott described the book as "comprehensive" and essential reading for any serious student of Marxism. He was convinced by Kołakowski's argument that Marx's later works, such as Capital, were consistent with his earlier works from 1843 onward, continuing and elaborating their principles. He found the first volume valuable to economists in the "institutionalist tradition" for Kołakowski's observation that Marx never adopted an ethical or normative point of view, his explanation of Marx's notion of praxis, the "interweaving of theory and practice", and his explanation that Marx's critique of capitalism starts "not with poverty but with dehumanization." He found the second volume a "tour de force", and considered it in some ways the best of the three. He commended Kołakowski's discussion of how the various Marxist schools of thought during the Second International differed from each other, and from Marx. While he found Kołakowski's discussions of Lenin and Soviet Marxism informative, he added that they had to be read with an awareness of Kołakowski's opposition to the Soviet regime. He considered Kołakowski better at describing than criticizing Marxism, and criticized him for over-relying on Eugen Böhm von Bawerk's critique of Marx's theory of value. However, he concluded that Kołakowski's work had merits that more than made up for these deficiencies.^[18]

Calhoun wrote that the book attracted criticism from left-wing writers due partly to Kołakowski's abandonment of Marxism, but that as the only "handbook" of Marxism it was influential even on the left. He criticized Kołakowski's lack of sympathy for Marxism, and argued that Kołakowski's focused on Marxist writers only insofar as they could be considered philosophers, and distorted Marxism by giving comparatively little attention to Marxist economists, historians, and social scientists. He considered the book clearly written, but not "encyclopedic or accessible enough to be an adequate reference work." He found Kołakowski's discussion of Marx's Capital "generally sound", although noted that it was focused on non-economic issues. He found Kołakowski's first volume a good discussion of Marx, but suggested that it contained "too few insights not to have been written in a more readable fashion". He found Kołakowski's discussion of Russian Marxism in his second volume often unfair, and also considered it over-long for a polemic. He was unconvinced by Kołakowski's argument that Stalinism was the logical conclusion of the work of Vladimir Lenin, and considered Kołakowski's treatment of the impact of the Soviet Union on Marxism in other countries inadequate. He agreed with some, but not all, of Kołakowski's criticisms of the Frankfurt School. He concluded that while Kołakowski "offers many facts and many good arguments", his work did not give as good a sense of Marxism as an intellectual enterprise as it could have.^[19]

Joravsky argued that Kołakowski challenged the traditional view of Marx as a philosopher who became a revolutionary socialist and political economist by presenting Marx primarily as a philosopher. He saw the book as a continuation of arguments over Marxism that Kołakowski had previously engaged in while a member of the Communist Party of Poland. He wrote that Kołakowski's negative portrayal of the historical consequences of Marxism was "at odds with the factual richness and complexity of his massive history", and found Kołakowski to be guilty of inconsistency by presenting himself as being beyond disputes between Marxists, while still adhering to Lukács's interpretation of Marx. He accused Kołakowski of unfairly blaming Marx for totalitarianism. He found much of Main Currents of Marxism dull, and considered Kołakowski's account of Marx's place in the history of philosophy tendentious. He criticized Kołakowski for ignoring the problems Marx posed to social science and giving Marx credit only for commonplaces such as considering the social context of beliefs, and for dealing only with Marxist writers who were connected with Marxist movements or regimes, mentioning Karl Mannheim and C. Wright Mills as authors Kołakowski ignored. He gave a more favorable assessment of Kołakowski's discussion of Austromarxism, Polish Marxism, and Jürgen Habermas, but was dissatisfied with Kołakowski's treatment of the Communist movement as a whole, accusing Kołakowski being preoccupied with Russia and neglecting other countries.^[20]

Adler described the book as a "massive study", adding that as a critical study of Marxism "it was unprecedented and remains largely unsurpassed" and was an "indispensable contribution to political understanding." Although he concluded that Kołakowski's personal history as a once orthodox Marxist who later became a "revisionist" and eventually abandoned communism entirely, largely explains his stance took towards Marxism, he credited Kołakowski with not sinking "to the level of hackneyed anti-Communism one might well expect from an intellectual prohibited from publishing, stripped of his teaching post, as well as his public personage." He found Kołakowski's work generally exhibited both intellectual honesty and "scholarly luminescence". However, while he considered Kołakowski's critique of Eastern European Marxism to be strong, its strength made his dismissive treatment of Western Marxism and the New Left all the more "disappointing and intellectually unsatisfying." He suggested that Kołakowski's views on the New Left might have been shaped by his contact with the Berkeley counterculture in the 1960s, and that Kołakowski had failed to try to understand what led to the crisis of faith in the values of democratic societies that produced the New Left. He praised Kołakowski's discussion of Gramsci and Lukács, but wrote that he "applies them one-sidedly to a critique of Eastern Marxism, never to how their critiques of hegemony and reification might apply specifically to conditions of advanced capitalism", and that his treatment of the Frankfurt School and Marcuse was harsh and unfair. He also found the one-volume edition of the book so large and heavy as to be cumbersome and physically difficult to use.^[21]

Hindess described the book as "a ponderous polemic" against Marxism, Lenin, and the Bolsheviks. He considered Kołakowski lacking in detachment, and criticized him for not considering alternatives to his view that Marx's thought was a philosophical anthropology settled in its essential features by the time of The German Ideology, and for relying on "the notion of totalitarianism", which he considered "worthless as a tool of political analysis". He argued that because Kołakowski viewed Marxism as a philosophy he gave insufficient attention to "the use of Marxism as a means of political calculation or to the substantive questions of political and economic analysis posed in numerous Marxist attempts at concrete analysis". He accused Kołakowski of providing misleading discussions of Marxist writers such as Karl Kautsky, and of Lenin's politics and the development of Stalinism. He described Kołakowski's account of Marxism as a "grotesque and offensive caricature" that failed to explain Marxism's impact on the modern world.^[22]

Miliband wrote that Kołakowski had provided a "remarkably comprehensive" survey of Marxism, showed a "prodigious" knowledge of its literature, and that much of his discussion of Marxism was "penetrating and challenging". However, he considered Kołakowski too hostile to Marxism for his description of his work as a "handbook" to be accurate, and maintained that his approach to Marxism and its history was "fundamentally misconceived." He argued that Kołakowski's view of the relation of Marxism to Leninism and Stalinism was mistaken, and that Kołakowski ignored important differences between Marx's early and later work, falsely portraying Marx as an "unchanging philosophical visionary" rather than primarily as an "economic and social theorist". He described Kołakowski's view that Marxism aimed at "a society of perfect unity, in which all human aspirations would be fulfilled and all values reconciled" as "absurdly overdrawn", and inconsistent with some of Kołakowski's other observations, maintaining that Kołakowski did not provide sufficient argument to support his conclusions. He accused Kołakowski of misrepresented Marx and failing to explain the appeal of Marxism; he also faulted Kołakowski's discussion of historical materialism, and accused him of "character assassination" against Rosa Luxemburg. He rejected Kołakowski's view that reformist socialism and Leninism are the only two political options for Marxists. He concluded that Main Currents of Marxism was unworthy of its author's talent or his subject.^[23] Kołakowski replied to Miliband's review, reaffirming his views as expressed in Main Currents of Marxism, and accusing Miliband of misrepresenting them.^[27]

Evaluations in books

The Marxist historian G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, writing in The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981), considered Main Currents of Marxism overpraised, but nevertheless acknowledged that he was influenced by it. Croix credited Kołakowski with accurately describing some of the disastrous developments of Marx's thought by many of his followers.^[28] Main Currents of Marxism was praised by the philosopher A. J. Ayer.^[29] The philosopher Roger Scruton, writing in Thinkers of the New Left (1985) credited Kołakowski with lucidly describing the main tendencies of Marxism and expressed agreement with Kołakowski's view of Lukács as "an intellectual Stalinist, one for whom an opponent sacrifices, by his very opposition, the right to exist."^[30] The conservative author William F. Buckley Jr. and the political scientist Charles R. Kesler, writing in Keeping the Tablets: Modern American Conservative Thought (1988), credited Kołakowski with demonstrating "the connection between Marxist theory and Stalinist reality", calling his book "excellent".^[31]

Paul Thomas, writing in The Cambridge Companion to Marx (1991), argued that Kołakowski wrongly interprets Marxism as "radical anthropocentrism, a secularization of the (real) religious absolute, a formula for human self-perfectibility, and the self-deification of humankind." Thomas saw Kołakowski's interpretation as being motivated by the wish to connect Marx to "his self-appointed disciples."^[32] The political scientist David McLellan praised Kołakowski in the 1995 edition of his Karl Marx: His Life and Thought for the thoroughness of his philosophical discussion of Marx.^[33] M. W. Jackson, writing in Jon Stewart's anthology The Hegel Myths and Legends (1996), criticized Kołakowski's treatment of Hegel, arguing that Kołakowski is one of many authors who have misleadingly seen Hegel's philosophy as supporting "a quiescent authoritarian politics or worse." In the same work, Main Currents of Marxism is listed as a work that has promoted "myths" about Hegel.^[34] The historian of science Roger Smith wrote that while Main Currents of Marxism is "written by a deeply disabused Polish ex-Marxist intellectual", it is "an invaluable history across an extended range."^[35] The philosopher Richard Rorty wrote that people in eastern and central Europe who have read Kołakowski suspect that he tells you "pretty much all you will ever need to know about Marx and Marxism–Leninism."^[36]

Footnotes

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