Europe that existed at the time of the Russian Revolution.
Like Amedeo Bordiga, who also died recently, Lukacs was a living representative of the disputes which, in its revolutionary period, took place in the Third International.
However, unlike Bordiga,, we cannot simply say of Lukacs that despite wrong theories, he nevertheless remained absolutely faithful to the proletarian revolution. We are regretfully forced to conclude that, no matter what his subjective intentions may have been, Lukacs became, by 1935 at any rate, an opponent of the working class revolutionary movement. He became a dazzling theoretical appendage of Stalinism. But in exactly the same way that Lenin always maintained that much was to be learned from Plekhanov, despite his counter-revolutionary political positions, so we must critically examine Lukac's work to see if anything is tn he taken from it.
History and Class Consciousness Marxism did not spring fully formed out of nowhere. Neither did Marx develop his ideas in a vacuum. On the contrary the formation of Marx's ideas would have been inconceivable without the background of the economics of Ricardo, the philosophy of Hegel, the ideRs of Owen and the Utopian socialists etc. Nevertheless, Marx did not just take these ideas and fit them together in some sort of easy synthesis. On the contrary, it was only by restructuring these theories totally, adding new discoveries of his own and refuting elements in previous theories that Marx was able to produce a logically internally consistent and coherent theory, which broke radically with all previous socialist theories. At various times other Marxists have engaged in the same sort of activity. Lenin for example recast entirely, but utilised many of the ideas of, bourgeois theories of Imperialism such as those of Hobson and Hilferding. However no-one has ever tried to incorporate into Marxism so many bourgeois insights as Lukacs In fact in one sense we can see his entire life's work as an attempt to combine Marxism and some of the ideologies and accomplishments of the bourgeoisie. It is this aspect of Lukacs which of course made him, or at least some of his writings, the idol of those, like Lucien Goldman, who wish to strip Marxism of its proletarian revolutionary contants and turn it into a shallow theory of Humanism. However Lukacs cannot be entirely blamed for the sins of his "Tollowens". If at times Lukacs succeeds in restruct. unag Marxism so as to make it acceptable to the petty-Bourgeoisie and this is particularly the case in books such 'The Historical Novel", and The Meaning of Contemp orary Realism'*--nevertheless in other areas and at othe times Lukacs succeeds in enriching Marxism by his restructuring of bourgeois insights.
The bourgeois theories with which Lukacs was battling with when he wrote the famous collection of essays which became History and Class Consciousness were those of Hegel and Sorel. From Hegel, Lukacs took the concept of "totality" which he counterposed to the economic determinism of Kautsky, Bernstein, Alder and the other theorists of Social Democracy. In doing this it would appear that Lukacs was only following in the footsteps of Plekhanov who, in his essay "On the Sixtieth Anniversary of the death of Hegel", had himself counterposed the concept of totality to that of economic determinism. However the resemblance to Plekhanov, or even to the Lenin of the early writings on economies, which also deal with the question of the relation of the economic and the tatality, is only superficial. When Plekanov and Lenin, in their early works, used the concept of totality they were emphasising that in Marxism the political, the economic, the social etc, are merely differing typas of abstraction and are not separate levels of analysis. For Lukacs however BELFAST: Alan Morris, c/o The Red Mole.
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The category of totality, the all pervasive supremacy of the whole over the parts is the essence of the method which Marx took over from Hegel and transformed into the foundations of a wholly new science."
The analysis which led Lukacs to this conclusion represents perhaps the most significant question asked in Marxism,outside the writings of Lenin and Trotsky.
What Lukacs in effect did was to ask: How does the logical structure of a proletarian conception of reality differ from that of the bourgeoisie? We may well not agree with the answer that Lukacs gave but then in Marxism, as in any other science, it is frequently not ant, but rather those who think of the right questions.
Lukacs, by showing that such a question existed settled at least two points which had previously bedevilled with Alder, Kautsky etc. were questions of method and not of "fact" or interpretation, and in so doing he raised the whole polemic against reformism to a qualitatively problem of the relation of Marxist and bourgeois theory. Before History and Class Consciousness there had been a tendency to fall into one of two traps. Either the to be in the conclusions they reached, which reduced the Marxism bound to lose, as the bourgeois concept of fact to assimilate Marxism to bourgeois theory in those areas which Marx himself had never dealt with. This latter tendency is particularly marked in the case of Hilferding. Because bourgeois research was making remarkable strides in many subjects it was believed by the Social Democrats that these results could simply be incorporated as they stood into Marxism. However because these bourgeois theories logically followed from theories which dealt with the parts of bourgeois theory accepted by the Social Democrats and those parts which conflicted with Marxism. Faced with this problem the Social Democrats either retreated into dogmatism, abandoned themselves to electicism, or renounced Marxism altogether. Lukacs solved the problem once and for all by showing that the incompatability of Marxism and bourgeois theory lay not at the level of data but at the level of logical structure. Even if his conception of the nature of the difference invalved is incorrect, the way Lukacs posed the question was precisely correct and establishes his claim to be noted among major Marxist theories. "Lenin" and later works.
After History and Class Consciousness -which was at the time condemned by the Comintern and which Lukaes himself later renounced -Lukacs never wrote anything of equal intellectual power. His book on Lenin is thought provoking, and its concept of "The Actuality of the Revolution" is a key one, but unfortunatly the book is marred by being based on a series of statements which are straightforward lies-such as for example that Lenin was initially alone in opposing the First World War from a revolutionary defeatist position.
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Lincoln LONDON NORTH & NORTH WEST: c/o Red Mole, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1, HAMMERSMITH: Edd Arnauritian. but to a particular way of structring that reality so that it can never constitute anything but a totality. This method of logical structuring is what Lukacs defined as Marxism. passage his definition of Marxism in History and Class Consciousness. He wrote that: "It is not the primacy of in 1956 those who give the right answer who are the most importMarxism. On the one hand he showed that the differences more profound level, On the other hand Lukacs solved the difference between Marxism and academic theories was held difference betveen the tivo to a pure question of "fact", with was accepted in the initial premises, or there was a tendency areas Marx had touched on, a contradiction grew up between Alan Jones LOUGBOROUGH: Ann Black, 4 Russell Street, Loughborough.
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Unfortunatly from the late 1920's onwards Lukacs writings also become tinged with another theme which was to lead to an intellectual decay and compromise with Stalin the bourgeoisie. This was the theory of phenomenal as opposed to structural realism in art which is made most explicit in "The Historical Novel". This theory was used in attempt to how the products of high bourgeois art and the art of Stalinist Russia, with its "Socialist Realism"
thronodies to departed tractors, the struggle for production on a collective farm etc, could be combined. Through the development of these type of ideas lkacs must be held responsible for giving an ideological backing to much of the staleness and barreness of Marxist artistic criticism, despite the fact that his own particular studies are interesting and in an episodic way brilliant.
Lukacs own assessment of his role under Stalinism and From 1924 onwards Lukacs came to support the Stalin faction inside the Russian Communist Party. He did this on the worst possible basis by accepting the totally ridiculous theory that it was possible to exceed the standard of living provided by the entire capitalist economies simply on the basis of the economic resources of the Soviet Urion. This was the notorious theory of "Socialism in One Country". From then on, with a remorseless logic, Lukess theories and ideas degenerated.
Lukacs failures at a theoretical level were compounded by what can only be described as political cowardice. For example he notes of an inner party struggle that although he firmly believed he was correct, "When I heard from a reliable source that Bela Kum was planning to expel me from the Party as a 'Liquidator", I gave up the struggle, as I was well aware of Kun's prestige in the International, and I published a 'Self-criticisni'." This was to be the first of many such "confessions" which at various times led Lukacs to denounce any number of his works. Lukacs was of course far too intelligent to accept all the grosser aspects of Stalinism but all he was prepared to do about it was to keep up an irregular sniping fire at some of its aspects in the aesthetic field. To those who eulogise Lukacs and his ilk we can unhesitatingly say that the struggle of even the most obscure Left Oppositionist against Stalinism contributed infinitly more to the cause of the proletarian revolution than did the entire output of Lukacs in this period. It is easy to become a communist, as Luicacs did, at a time when the enthusiasm for the Russian Revolution was sweeping the world. What is infinitly more difficult is to remain a communist in a period of 20 years of defeat, and by that criteria Lukacs, for all his brilliance, failed miserably. This failure extended even to his short reentry into politics in 1956. Here he sided not with the workers councils and fighting proletariat of Budapest, but with the reformist Stalinist government of Nagy which would have been swept away with the Russian tanks if only the Hungarian workers had been victorious.
Marx once remarked that some people believe that an intellectual can soar above all classes. In so doing, he noted, they only reveal that they are the petty-bourgeosie tossed helplessly back and forth between the working class and the bourgeoisie. This statement could be applied not only to Lukacs himself but also to those who will -undoubtedly use the ocassion of his death to try to glowify his undoubted intellectual achievements while ignoring his politicalactivitios. We should ignore neither and instead try to do what Lukacs himself was an advocate ofnamely to try to restructure his own (bourgeois) ideas su as to enrich Marxism. The only difference is that revolutionaries must understand that this cannot be done as Lukacs tried to de it-in opposition to the interests of the working class and in abstraction from revolutionary practice SURREY CHERTSEY: Joe Xavier, Engineering Dept., Botley's Park Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey. (719 2247)
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"totality" refers not to the total of all aspects of "reality", RED CIRCLES/RED MOLE CONTACTS GLASGOW: Roland O'Brien, 38 Pendeen Rd.,