Gao Xiaoxi: Problem Consciousness and Theoretical Tension of Classical Western Marxism
Classical Western Marxism refers to the body of Western Marxist theory spanning from Lukács to Althusser between the 1920s and 1960s. It has exerted a significant influence on the theoretical construction and development of new trends in foreign Marxism. The problem-consciousness of classical Western Marxism originated from strategic disputes over how to conduct revolution in the West—specifically, the formation of differing positions and perspectives regarding how to carry out a socialist revolution in developed capitalist countries. At the theoretical level, this was primarily reflected in the reflection upon and inquiry into the philosophical essence of Marxism. In terms of historical conditions, 20th-century capitalism was an era where contradictions and crises overlapped, and adjustment and restoration coincided. First, at the level of economic structure, an oligopolistic pattern emerged that was adapted to the high degree of socialization of production, thereby extending the life cycle of capital. Second, adjustments in the industrial structure fragmented the ranks of the working class; in particular, the formation of a "labor aristocracy" [1] affected the cohesion of revolutionary ideology to a certain extent. Finally, capital’s mode of dominance shifted from direct violent repression to concealed and flexible ideological manipulation; for instance, through "false needs" and "symbolic consumption" created by consumerism and mass culture, it captured subjects' points of excitement and areas of focus, thereby achieving the goals of colonizing the life-world and maintaining political rule. Regrettably, theorists of the Second International [2] not only failed to grasp these changes but instead pinned their revolutionary hopes on dogmatic interpretations of Marxism. Their rigid determinist stance ultimately could not bridge the misalignment between theory and practice. Following the successive failures of proletarian revolutions in Western Europe, some theorists within Western Communist parties and progressive Western intellectuals began to explore revolutionary paths suited to the characteristics of the era and the practical environment, forming the Western Marxist camp known for its focus on the field of the cultural superstructure.
Classical Western Marxists from Lukács to Althusser advocated for the restoration of the critical academic tradition of Marxist philosophy and attempted to reveal the ruling strategies of contemporary capitalism by starting from the levels of culture, ideology, and values. Faced with the reified consciousness [3] promoted by the bourgeoisie and the economic determinism held by Western proletarian parties and the Marxist camp, classical Western Marxism emphasized that the degree of development of class consciousness was directly related to the success or failure of the revolution. They argued that revolutionary action should adopt a "totality" strategy that includes political and economic revolution, grounded in a psycho-cultural revolution. This required exerting the ideological function of Marxist philosophy to cultivate mature class consciousness in the proletariat and autonomous human consciousness, thereby subverting [4] the total alienation and total rule of the bourgeoisie.
Differences in revolutionary strategy reflected differing philosophical outlooks; classical Western Marxism and the Second International formed different understandings of the form, nature, and function of Marxist philosophy. To the former, the philosophical form of Marxism possesses modern characteristics and is a new type of materialist philosophy that transcends modern [5] philosophy. Accordingly, we should proceed from the rupture point with modern philosophy and interpret Marxism as a subjective theory of practice—one that takes social history as its content and emphasizes the dialectical unity of philosophy, history, and politics. This means the philosophical function of Marxism does not lie in exploring the immutable essence of the world or abstract metaphysical laws, but rather requires—on the basis of subverting modern rationalist philosophy and its dualistic worldview—a return to the sensory realm opened up by the subjective activity of practice, which encompasses the relations between man and nature and man and man. This approach reveals the logic of the reification of capital and seeks a realistic path toward human freedom and liberation. By contrast, the Second International, influenced by modern rationalist philosophy, set Marxist philosophy as a determinist theoretical form. Its greatest characteristic was the conflation of historical laws with natural laws in a statistical sense, ignoring the subjective dimension of historical materialism and historical dialectics. Meanwhile, because this mode of interpretation was detached from Marx's views on practice and history, it not only struggled to reflect the critical-evaluative attributes of historical dialectics but also lacked the power to combat capital's mechanisms of reification and the resulting exhaustion of revolutionary will, thus falling into the pitfalls of dogmatism and political pragmatism. Classical Western Marxist theorists delved deep into the indigenous logic of revolutionary paths, emphasizing the derivation of radical ideological strategies from changes in capital's production technology and differences between Eastern and Western historical and cultural conditions, reflecting a strong sense of critique, history, and reality. These three types of consciousness are of positive significance for opposing dogmatic and determinist Marxism, as well as for examining prevalent issues in contemporary Western society such as technological rationality, consumerism, and ecological alienation.
However, the question of how to realize the dialectical unity between the critique of capitalist ideology and revolutionary practice constituted the central axis around which the theoretical tension of classical Western Marxism formed and unfolded; it also exposed subjective and romanticist tendencies at the level of the theory of practice. Based on this problem, two interpretive models—humanism and scientism—formed within the classical Western Marxist camp. The former includes Hegelian Marxism represented by Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, and Existentialist Marxism; the latter is primarily represented by Althusser's Structuralist Marxism. Although the two share common cognitive ground in terms of transcending the epistemological path of modern philosophy, promoting the critical philosophical tradition of Marx, and highlighting the critique of ideology and cultural values, they diverge in their narrative logic across fields of history vs. structure, monism vs. pluralism, practice vs. theory, and necessity vs. contingency. In short, while humanist scholars followed the Hegelian elements contained in Marx's early texts to extract a subjective consciousness sufficient to derive a logic of action, Althusser elucidated a "theoretically anti-humanist" view of Marxism at the "epistemological break" [6] between Marx and modern philosophy. On one hand, he sought to avoid the erosion of the "science of historical materialism" by humanist ideology through propositions such as "theoretical practice" and "class struggle in the field of theory." On the other hand, by emphasizing the principle of synchrony and a dialectics of "overdetermination" [7] based on structural causality, he interpreted the multi-leveled nature of social structure and the contradictory mechanisms of overdetermination in historical development. Yet, the distinct anti-subjective and anti-historical color eventually caused Althusser's efforts to seek the invariant within historical variations to lapse into a theoretical monologue, and his radical discourse—having been castrated of its orientation toward the theory of practice—could only achieve self-consistency within a mystical atmosphere of "contingent encounter."
After undergoing the baptism of the "May 1968" [8] storm, classical Western Marxism as a trend of thought showed signs of decline, but its overflowing theoretical tensions continue to permeate the complex landscape of integration and breakthroughs among the Old and New Left. As the organizational forms of capital production shifted toward flexible post-Fordism, traditional humanist and scientistic narratives became powerless to navigate the intricate historical-geographical landscape of capital. They either rely on popular social trends to maintain a radical theoretical posture, or they revise the details of Marx's arguments to ensure the "uncompromising nature" of their discourse, or they simply abandon the quest for liberation in favor of individualized, fashionable aspirations. For example, in Ecological Marxism—which emphasizes the unity of the materialist views of nature and history—we can see the critiques of technological rationality, consumerism, and cultural values that originated with Lukács and were elaborated by the Frankfurt School. Similarly, in Post-Marxism, which contains diverse interests and prefers marginal narratives, one can find the traces of Gramsci's "hegemony" alongside Althusser's "overdetermination" and "ideological state apparatuses." As for the topics favored by Late Marxism—such as the body, culture, space, and the politics of liberation—these likewise exist in an intertextual relationship with Gramsci's theory of ideology, Althusser's structuralist method, and the "spatial turn" initiated by Lefebvre. We can even view the theoretical map of foreign Marxism as a result shaped and governed by tension-structures such as "history-structure, time-space, substance-discourse, class-individual, construction-deconstruction, liberation-extrication," all originating from the problem-consciousness of classical Western Marxism. From this perspective, a lack of academic self-awareness regarding the problem-consciousness of classical Western Marxism makes it difficult to grasp the history and current state of foreign Marxism within the horizon of intellectual history. It also makes it easy to misjudge the history of interpretation, dissemination, and effects of Western Marxism, thereby weakening the consciousness of the times and the global vision contained within Sinicized Marxism.
Classical Western Marxism occupies an important position in the theoretical map of foreign Marxism. Against the historical backdrop of the continuous fragmentation and recombination of contemporary foreign left-wing trends, accurately grasping its problem-consciousness and theoretical tensions is not only conducive to a holistic theoretical positioning and evaluation of the successes and failures of classical Western Marxism, but also of positive significance for exploring the internal logic and theoretical substance of cutting-edge foreign left-wing trends within a dialectical horizon.