Li Wei: The Disorientation and Path of Recovery of Western Marxism
Western Marxism: A Reconstruction: How It Was Born, How It Died, How It Can Be Reborn (Italian: Il marxismo occidentale: Come nacque, come morì, come può rinascere; hereinafter referred to as Western Marxism: A Reconstruction) is a highly provocative work published in 2017 by Domenico Losurdo (1941–2018), a renowned European expert on the history of Marxist philosophy. The Chinese edition, edited by Jiang Hui as part of the "World Marxism and Left-wing Studies Series" planned by the Institute of Marxism Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), was published by Contemporary China Publishing House in April 2022.
In 2018, in an article commemorating the bicentennial of Marx's birth, young Italian Marxist scholars proposed a striking viewpoint: the rebirth of Marxism in the West depends not only on the practical exploration of Western communists but also on whether they can "draw lessons and borrow relevant historical experience from the comparison between Eastern and Western Marxism" to achieve a breakthrough in theoretical innovation. In fact, this is precisely the theme Losurdo explores in Western Marxism: A Reconstruction. In this work, Losurdo reconstructs the developmental trajectory of Western Marxism, investigating how it fell into the myth of Western-centrism during its anti-capitalist struggles, how it marched from victory toward decline and death by rejecting Eastern Marxism due to its blindness toward liberalism, and the possibility of its rebirth through a collision with Eastern Marxism.
Losurdo was a famous Italian historical philosopher, an expert on Hegelian philosophy, and a specialist in the history of Marxist philosophy. He served as a professor of the history of philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Urbino, and was President of the International Hegel-Marx Society for Dialectical Thought. As a leading European scholar on the themes of liberalism, Marxism, and communism, he dedicated himself to challenging the dominant ideologies of capitalist society through the deconstruction of historical records.
In Western Marxism: A Reconstruction, Losurdo first clarifies the category of Western Marxism. The first thinker to use the concept of "Western Marxism" was the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In his 1955 work Adventures of the Dialectic, he compared Georg Lukács' "Western" Marxism with Lenin’s Eastern Marxism, pointing the former toward the realm of dialectics and the latter toward the realm of practical materialism. However, the concept was made more famous by Perry Anderson, editor of the New Left Review. In 1976, Anderson released Considerations on Western Marxism, which was soon published in Italy. In Anderson's view, Western Marxism began with two great works—Lukács' History and Class Consciousness and Karl Korsch's Marxism and Philosophy—which focused on the unique use of philosophy and the interpretation of Marxism. Thereafter, in the West, Marxism became a refined philosophy. Yet simultaneously, Anderson declared the "outright independence and heterogeneity" of Western Marxism relative to "the states of actual socialism and Marxism in the East." The Frankfurt School, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henri Lefebvre, Louis Althusser in France, Galvano Della Volpe and Lucio Colletti in Italy, and even Antonio Gramsci were all included within the category of Western Marxism.
In this book, Losurdo’s reconstruction of the evolutionary history of Western Marxism begins with two epochal events of the 20th century: the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 and the victory of the Russian October Revolution in November 1917. Accompanied by the historical tides triggered by these two events, Marxism moved beyond the borders of the West and began its global dissemination. Different cultural, geopolitical, and socio-economic conditions in the East and West stimulated a process of differentiation within Marxism, leading to unprecedented contradictions. In the West, the outbreak of World War I and the public’s weariness, loathing, and resentment toward endless slaughter drove the rapid development of the communist movement. In the East, the victory of the Russian October Revolution gave great hope for regaining independence to Eastern nations oppressed by imperialist powers. Thus, the first difference between Eastern and Western Marxism was formed: more people in the East than in the West listened to Marxism's class-based critique of democracy and freedom within the capitalist system, and more people dedicated themselves to promoting the victory of anti-colonial revolutions.
In the West, anti-war sentiment pushed people toward revolution, and the critique of capitalism focused on the state and military apparatus. The young Ernst Bloch believed that "the state has shown its inherent typical coercive, barbaric, and satanic nature," and that it was necessary to destroy this "monster." In the East, amid the tide of the October Revolution, the Marxist and communist movements formed a stance whereby achieving national independence from colonial oppression was prioritized. This is the second difference between Eastern and Western Marxism.
In Losurdo’s view, there are two other important differences between Eastern and Western Marxism. First, Western Marxism believes that the resolution of imperialist conflict lies in ending the private economy, currency, and their associated powers; however, for Eastern Marxism, trade and the monetary economy represent the survival and continuation of the revolutionary cause. Second, in the West, the enormous destructiveness of war led to fears regarding the negative impacts of technological progress; in the East, only through economic development and scientific progress could a nation-state win the foundation for independence and satisfy the needs of the people. In short, the experience of World War I led Europe to imagine a "future without capitalism," whereas underdeveloped countries in the East had to first develop their productive forces—a view also proposed by Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party—before they could triumph over capitalism.
Losurdo argues that the differences between Eastern and Western Marxism stem not only from historical and material conditions but also from the role of cultural traditions. In the West, World War I strengthened the influence of Judeo-Christian Messianism, leading to the transformation of the world being viewed as a redemption from negativity and sin. In the East, these Messianic images were absent, and Eastern traditional culture allowed for a more pragmatic reception of Marxism. Although Lenin and many Bolshevik leaders lived in exile in the West, the slogan he proposed after World War I—"Proletarians of the world and oppressed nations, unite!"—contained the dialectical relationship between the withering away of the state and the elimination of colonial rule to establish independent nation-states. Therefore, Losurdo points out that Lenin and his followers all regarded the colonial question as the central issue of the proletarian revolution.
In Losurdo’s view, although differences exist between Eastern and Western Marxism, they should not produce contradictions. This is because the protagonists of Eastern Marxism are the oppressed nations striving for independence and freedom from colonial rule, while the protagonists of Western Marxism are the working class who refuse to serve the wars of the elite. However, from the very beginning, Eastern and Western Marxism set out on different paths. Lenin later developed more forward-looking reflections on colonial and national independence issues, noting that small and weak nations always faced the risk of being bullied, colonized, and manipulated by great powers. The crux of the matter lay in transcending the capitalist and imperialist world system.
It is precisely because Western Marxism lost its connection with the anti-colonial revolution that it moved toward decline. The famous Italian philosopher Lucio Colletti mocked the unyielding Marxists' interest in "underdeveloped" countries, "peasants," and the "rural masses"; Mario Tronti boasted that he had never fallen into the "trap" of the Chinese "encircling the cities from the countryside" [1] and the Long March. The respect Althusser expressed in his works for the global anti-colonial revolution was undermined by his distinct theoretical anti-humanism. According to Max Horkheimer’s "Critical Theory," in the face of the ideals of so-called "liberal democracy" and the "withering away of the state," the vast difference between the Soviet Union—which achieved industrialization and made outstanding contributions to the anti-fascist struggle—and the Nazi state—which implemented aggression, enslavement, and colonization—was deemed less significant. Herbert Marcuse realized the central significance of the colonial question but remained skeptical of the victory of the Vietnamese people and their choice of the socialist path. After the outbreak of the Cold War, Hannah Arendt shifted from a strong critique of Western racism and colonialism toward a position of beautifying the liberal West and downplaying its colonial traditions, tending to view communism as a twin brother to 20th-century Nazism. Michel Foucault’s decoupling from colonialism hindered a proper interpretation of capitalism, weakening the efficacy of his historical theories on racism and biopolitics. Emmanuel Levinas and Giorgio Agamben injected political Social Darwinism—which explains the generation of institutions through biological concepts—into historical materialism to prove a continuity between the latter and biological racism. Meanwhile, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt loudly praised American revolution and democracy while ignoring its true meaning: for the colonized peoples who encountered racial discrimination and genocide, the founding of the United States was a counter-revolution rather than a revolution. Slavoj Žižek offered an abstract generalization of the fate of colonized peoples, purging categories such as imperialism, anti-imperialism, and the Third World, merely distinguishing between authoritarian capitalism and non-authoritarian capitalism. Only Gramsci and Lukács transcended these tropes. Gramsci understood that for mainstream Western culture, communism was a form of humanism that countered its arrogance and prejudice; Lukács, while not focusing on the colonial question in History and Class Consciousness or his mature works, described and analyzed the revolutionary role of nations oppressed and exploited by capitalism in a book dedicated to Lenin written in 1924.
Based on the above analysis, Losurdo points out that the decline of Western Marxism is attributable to its neglect of the true turning point of 20th-century history: the anti-colonial struggle. The massive casualties of World War I allowed people to see the horror of the capitalist-imperialist system and the urgency of overthrowing it. The Bolsheviks took immediate action; the October Revolution was seen in Europe as a historical process that stopped the war and exerted a massive attraction on the masses and intellectuals. It was also the process that drove Asia from colonies and semi-colonies toward independent, modern states. But in this process, the mission of the Western proletariat and Western Marxism seemed to disappear. At the same time, Western Marxism gradually completed a major shift from anti-liberalism toward an alignment with liberalism—this announced the arrival of its death.
Losurdo proposes three principles for the rebirth of Marxism in the West: first, Hegel’s "principle of understanding the era," meaning philosophy must strive to understand its own time while enduring the difficulty of recognizing historical reality, contradictions, and conflicts; second, Marx’s "principle of transforming the world," meaning no philosopher’s thought can be detached from their era, and its purpose is to transform the world; third, Lenin’s "principle of revolutionary change," meaning whoever harbors great expectations for such a heavenly world should clearly understand that these are products of the imagination; only revolutionary change can create an ideal world.
Regarding the prospects for Marxism’s rebirth in the West, Losurdo offers this analysis: Eastern and Western Marxism possess entirely different temporal characteristics—one is a future being realized, the other a future about to be realized or a distant one. In the East, the future of socialism is inseparable from the total victory of the anti-colonial revolution; in the West, socialism proceeds through opposition to the social polarization caused by...
... (as well as the growing allure of militarism) through struggle. Western Marxism is closely linked to a post-capitalist future, yet it has not resolved its own Messianic utopianism, nor has it figured out how to build a bridge between the future currently being realized and the distant future. Only by truly becoming "philosophized" in the Marxist sense—understanding and transforming the era in which it resides while rejecting dogmatism—can Western Marxism achieve rebirth.
After the October Revolution, the international communist movement merged with national liberation movements against imperialist oppression (as in China, Vietnam, and Cuba), thereby becoming a key driving force for anti-colonial revolutions and the historical transformations of the 20th century. Western Marxism was not oblivious to this. Of course, Western Marxism never abandoned the notion that, in the 20th century, the parts of the world most in need of change were those in the most developed capitalist spheres. However, to say that this was entirely unrelated to the fate of anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles would be inaccurate. Losurdo [2] was correct in his critique of Horkheimer, Bloch, Adorno, and Colletti; however, his critique of Žižek and Alain Badiou borders on the excessive. Western Marxism is an important form of philosophical exploration that began in the 20th century; even within the West, its significance is by no means inferior to bourgeois essentialism, phenomenology, logical empiricism, or pragmatism. Chinese scholars often explore the theoretical accumulation of Western Marxism in this sense, excavating its potential to critique and transform the world.
The uniqueness of The Reconstruction of Western Marxism [3] lies in its profound revelation, from an anti-colonial perspective, of how Western Marxism—steeped in Western politico-economic systems and socio-cultural traditions—has not only failed to mount a sufficient resistance against Western-centrism, liberalism, and conservatism, but has increasingly lost its functions of "understanding the era," "transforming the world," and "revolutionary change." Western Marxism either believes that the anti-capitalist struggle exists only within developed capitalist metropolises and is unrelated to the anti-colonial revolutions of smaller or weaker nations; or, while sympathizing with and supporting anti-colonial revolutions, it maintains that the socialism built by colonized peoples after achieving national independence is "unfree" and far removed from Marx’s original vision. As Stefano Petrucciani, Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Rome, argued in his defense of Western Marxism titled "Revolution from the East" in the leftist newspaper Il Manifesto—the true crux of the matter lies in how to understand socialist or communist freedom. In the eyes of Western Marxists, Eastern revolutions do not actually conform to the principles of freedom in Marx's mind (which Western Marxism still believes in). For Losurdo, there is only one kind of revolution that is realistic, historically verified, and victorious—and even if they temporarily deviate from the Marxist framework, one must remain patient with them. This issue has transcended the history of Marxism to become a broader problem of political theory.
What Lukács and Korsch raised were by no means purely academic theoretical questions, but questions of how to better interpret and transform reality. Gramsci, in his research on the philosophy of praxis, also emphasized the role of praxis as a bridge between subject and object. Although, judging by the theoretical issues they focused on, the "ivory tower" Western Marxist theorists did not actually evade the challenges of reality, the language and methods they used to reflect the era were overly convoluted, and the ideas carrying information about capitalist changes were too profound and difficult to grasp. Therefore, the real problem for Western Marxism today lies in its confinement to the academic field, being completely or almost completely detached from any intense social movements and the broader political context—such as global inequality. This renders it incapable of undertaking the heavy responsibility of "understanding the era," "transforming the world," and "revolutionary change." In this regard, the famous Italian leftist commentator Oscar Oddi pointed out that drawing inspiration from the development and reforms of Eastern socialist countries may become one of the sources of vitality for the rebirth of Western Marxism.
(Notes omitted)
(Author’s Affiliation: Institute of Marxism Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) Web Editor: Zhang Jian Source: World Socialism Studies, Issue 7, 2022