XXX HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION(1967) in jograde step, as Hungary had already been a soviet republic This question has another, and for me a more important aspect, 19 ich gives the change reo This is not the place to discuss all these different views. Particu on. As the reader of these essays knows, my decision to take an larly as the text of the theses can scarcely be held to have active part in the Communist movement was infuenced pro- iny great value as a theoretical document today, even though for foundly by ethical considerations. When I took this decision I did not suspect that I would be a politician for the next decade th on the However, circumstances would have it so. When, in February of principle and of concrete detail. This was due in part to the 1919, the Central Committee was arrested, I once again thought act that in order to make the chief matters of substance more it my. duty to accept the post offered to me in the semi-illegal acceptable I had treated the issues too generally and did not give suficient force to particulars. Even so they caused a great sequence posts in the People's Commissariat for Education in the scandal in the Hungarian Party. The Kun group saw the theses as Soviet Republic and political People's Commissariat in the Red the purest opportunism; support for me from my own party was Army, illegal activity in Budapest, internal party confict in lukewarm. When I heard from a reliable source that Bela Kun Vienna and so on. Only then was I placed before a real alterna- was planning to expel me from the Party as a 'Liquidator,,I tive. My internal, private self-criticism came to the conclusion gave up the struggle, as I was well aware of Kuns prestige in the that if i was so clearly in the right, as I believed, and could still International, and I published a'Self-criticism', I was indeed ot avoid such a sensational defeat, then there must be grave firmly convinced that I was in the right but I knew also-eg. defects in my practical political abilities. Therefore, I felt able from the fate that had befallen Karl Korsch-that to be expelled to withdraw from my political career with a good conscience and from the Party meant that it would no longer be possible to concentrate once more on theoretical matters i have never participate actively in the struggle against Fascism. I wrote my regretted this decision.( Nor is there any inconsistency in the fact self-criticism as an 'entry ticket' to such activity as I neither that in 1956 I had once again to take on a ministerial post. I could nor wished to continue to work in the Hungarian move declared before accepting it that it was only for the interim, the nt in the circumstances. period of acute crisis, and that as soon as the situation became How little this self-criticism was to be taken seriously can be more settled I would immediately resig gauged from the fact that the basic change in my outlook under In pursuing the analysis of my theoretical activities in the ng the Blum Theses(which failed, however, to express it in an narrow sense I have by-passed half a decade and can only now even remotely satisfactory fashion) determined from now on all return to a more detailed discussion of the essays subsequent to my theoretical and practical activities. Needless to say, this is istory and Class Consciousness. This divergence from the correct not the place to give even a brief account of these. As evidence chronological sequence is justified by the fact that, without my that my claim is objectively verifiable and not merely the uspecting it in the least, the theoretical content of the Blum product of a wish-fulfilment, I may cite the comments made (in Theses formed the secret terminus ad quem of my development. 1950)by Joszef Revai, the chief ideologist of the Party, with The years of my apprenticeship in Marxism could only be held reference to the Blum Theses. He regards the literary views I to have reached a conclusion when i really began to overcome eld at the time as flowing directly from the Blum Theses. Every- the contradictory dualism that had characterised my thought one familiar with the history of the Hungarian since the last years of the war by confronting a particular question Party knows that the literary views held by Comrade Lukacs of importance involving the most diverse problems. I can now between 1945 and 1949 belong together with political views that outline the course of this development up to the Blum Theses by he had formulated much earlier in the context of political trends pointing to my theoretical works dating from that period. I think in Hungary and of the strategy of the Communist Party at the that by establishing beforehand the terminal point of that develop- end of the twenties. 10 ment it becomes easier to give such an account. This is particu-
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION(1967) larly obvious when it is remembered that I devoted all my energy and practical life's work is objectively inseparable from the at this time to the practical problems of the hungarian movement eparations of 1917 and their necessary consequences. Illumined that my contributions to theory consisted chiefly of occasional he spotlight of the twenties, this attempt to do justice to the ecific nature of such a great man makes him appear slightly The first and longest of these, an attempt to provide an intellec unfamiliar but not wholly unrecognisable. tual portrait of Lenin, is literally an occasional piece. Immediately Cverything else that I wrote in the years that followed is not fter Lenin's death my publisher asked me for a brief monograph only outwardly adventitious (it consists largely of book reviews about hi im; I complied and the little essay was completed within but also inwardly. I was spontaneously searching for anew orienta- a few weeks. It represents an advance on History and Class Conscious tion and i tried to clarify my future direction by demarcating ness inasmuch as the need to concentrate on my grei it off from the views of others. As far as substance is concerned the helped me to put the concept of praxis into a clearer, more review of Bukharin is perhaps the most weighty of these works authentic, more natural and dialectical relationship with theory I would observe in passing for the benefit of the modern reader Needless to say, my view of the world revolution was that of the that in 1925 Bukharin was, after Stalin, the most important twenties. However, partly because of my experience of the brief figure in the leadership of the Russian Party; the breach between intervening period and partly because of the need to concentrate them did not take place for another three years. ) The most on Lenins intellectual personality the most obviously sectarian positive feature of this review is the way my views on economics features of History and Class Consciousness began to fade and were become concretised. This can be seen above all in my polemic ceeded by others closer to reality. In a Postscript that I against an idea that had a wide currency among both vulgar. ecently wrote for a separate reissue of this little study i tried to materialist Communists and bourgeois positivists. This was the how in somewhat greater detail than in the original what I still notion that technology was the principle that objectively governed believe to be the healthy and relevant features of its basic argu progress in the development of the forces of production. This ment. Above all I tried to see in Lenin neither a man who simply evidently leads to historical fatalism, to the elimination of man and and straightforwardly followed in the footsteps of Marx and Engels, nor a pragmatic Realpolitikerof genius. My aim was to like a societal 'natural force'obedient to 'natural laws. My clarify the authentic quality of his mind. Briefly this image of criticism not only moved on a more concrete historical level than Lenin can be formulated as follows: his strength in theory is had been the case for most of History and Class Consciousness, but derived from the fact that however abstract a concept may be he also I made less use of voluntaristic ideological counter-weights always considers its implications for human praxis. Likewise in to oppose to this mechanistic fatalism. I tried to demonstrate that the case of every action which, as always with him, is based on the concrete analysis of the relevant situation, he always makes technology too. The same applies to my review of wittiogel's sure that his analysis can be connected organically and dialectically book, Both analyses suffer from the same theoretical defect in that with the principles of Marxism. Thus he is neither a theoretician ey both treat mechanistic vulgar-materialism and positivism nor a practitioner in the strict sense of the word. He is a profound as a single undifferentiated trend and indeed the latter is for the sopher of praxis, a man who passionately transforms theory most part assimilated into the former into practice, a man whose sharp attention is always focused Of greater importance are the much more detailed discussions on the nodal points where theory becomes practice, practic f the new editions of lassalles's letters and the works of Moses becomes theory. The fact that my old study still bears the marks Hess. Both reviews are dominated by the tendency to ground of the twenties produces false emphases in my intellectual portrait social criticism and the evolution of society more concretely ir of Lenin, especially as his critique of the present probed much conomics than i had ever been able to do in history and Class deeper in his last period than that of his biographer. However, Consciousness. At the same time I tried to make use of the critique the main features are essentially correct of idealism, of the continuation of the Hegelian dialectic for
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOU PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION (1967) ging our knowledge of the insights thus acquired. That Hegelian philosophy and the True Socialists who were often ay, I took up again the criticism that the young Marx had closely associated with it. This also helped me to bring the phil levelled in The Holy Family at the idealist thinkers who had sophical definition of economic problems more forcefully into the allegedly refuted Hegel. Marx's criticism was that such thinkers foreground. My uncritical attitude towards Hegel had still not believed subjectively that they were makir an advance been overcome; my criticism of Hess, like History and Class Con- Hegel, while objectively they simply represented a revival of sciousness, is based on the supposed equation of objectification and Fichtes subjective idealism. Thus it is characteristic of the con- alienation. The advance on my earlier position assumes a some- servative aspects of Hegels thought that his history of philosophy what paradoxical form. On the one hand, I make use of those endencies in Hegel which emphasise the point that economic ively, therefore, there was certainly something revolutionary categories are societal realities as a stick with which to beat about the impulses that lay behind Fichtes philosophy of history Lassalle and the radical Young Hegelians. On the other hand, with its definition of the present as the age of total degradation I launch a sharp attack on Feuerbach for his undialectical criti oised between the past and a future of which it claimed to cims of Hegel. This last point leads to the position already have philosophical knowledge. Already in the review of Lassalle affirmed: that Marx takes up the thread where Hegel left off it is shown that this radicalism is purely imaginary and that as while the first leads to the attempt to define the relationship far as knowledge of the real movement of history is concerned between economics and dialectics more closely. To take one Hegel's philosophy moves on an objectively higher plane than example relating to the Phenomenology, emphasis is placed on egel's worldliness in his economic and social dialectics as opposed social and historical mediating factors that produce the present to the transcendentalism of every type of subjective idealism is more real and less of an abstract intellectual construct than In the same way alienation is regarded neither as"a mental Fichte's manner of pointing towards the future. Lassalle's sym construct nor as a reprehensible' reality"but"as the immediately given form in which the present exists on the way to overcomin overall view of the world; it refuses to concern itself with the tself in the historical process". This forms a link with an objective worldliness that results from a view of history based on economic. In order to give full force to the distance separating Marx and ness concerning mediation and immediacy in the evolution of Lassalle, I quoted in the review a statement made by Lassalle in society. The most important aspect of such ideas is that they the course of a conversation with Marx:"If you do not believe alminate in the demand for a new kind of critique which in the immortality of the categories, then you must believein God. already searching explicitly for a direct link-up with Marx's This sharp delineation of the retrograde features of Lassa Critique of Political Economy. Once I had gained a definite and hought was at the same time part of a theoretical polemic against undamental insight into what was wrong with my whole approach currents in Social Democracy. For in contrast to the criticism in History and Class Consciousness this search became a plan to Marx levelled at Lassalle, there was a tendency among the social vestigate the philosophical connections between economics Democrats to make of Lassalle a co-founder of the socialist view and dialectics. My first attempt to put this plan into practice of the world, on a par with Marx. I did not refer to them explicitly came early in the thirties, in Moscow and Berlin, with the first but I attacked the tendency as a bourgeois deviation. Thi draft of my book on the young Hegel(which was not completed helped to bring me closer to the real Marx on a number of issues til autumn 1937). 13 Only now, thirty years later, am I attempt than had been possible in History and Class Consciousnes ing to discover a real solution to this whole problem in the The discussion of Moses Hess had no such immediate p ontology of social existence, on which I am currently engaged. relevance. But having once taken up the ideas of the early Marx I am not in a position to document the extent to which these felt a strong need to define my position against that of his tendencies gained ground in the three years that separate the contemporaries, the left wing that emerged from the ruins of Hess essay from the Blum Theses. i just think it extremely unlikely
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNES PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION (1967) that my practical work for the party, with its constant demands a scientific, Marxist account of the matters treated there. I have for concrete economic analysis, should have had no effect on my already mentioned one such detour: it lead from the study of theoretical views on economics, At any rate, the great change in Hegel via the projected work on economics and dialectics to my my views that is embodied in the Blum Theses took place in 1929 k and it was with these new attitudes that I took up a research Parallel with this the desire arose in me to make use of my ost at the Marx -Engels Institute at Moscow in 1930. Here I knowledge of literature, art and their theory to construct a Marxist had two unexpected strokes of good luck: the text of the economic- aesthetics. This was the beginning of my collaboration with Philosophical Manuscripts had just been completely deciphered and Mikhail Lifschitz. In the course of many discussions it became I was able to read it. At the same time I made the acquaintance clear to us that even the best and most capable Marxists, like of Mikhail Lifschitz, and this proved to be the beginning of a Plekhanov and Mehring, had not had a sufficiently profound life-long friendship. In the process of reading the Marx manu- grasp of the universal nature of Marxism. They failed, therefore ript all the idealist prejudices of History and Class Consciousness understand that Marx confronts us with the necessity of erecting were swept to one side. It is undoubtedly true that I could have a systematic aesthetics on the foundations of dialectical material- ism, This is not the place to describe Lifschitz great achieve- ments in the spheres of philosophy and logy. As far as I But the fact is that this did not happen, evidently because I read myself am concerned, I wrote an essay on the Sickingen debate between Marx/ Engels and Lassalle. 3 In so doing the outlines of a completely new text could have such a shock effect.(Of course, such a system became clearly visible, though naturally they were an additional factor was that I had already undermined the socid limited to a particular problem. After stubborn initial resistand political foundations of that idealism in the Blum Theses especially from the vulgar sociologists, this view has meanwhile However that may be, I can still remember even today the over gained widespread acceptance in Marxist circles. But it is not whelming effect produced in me by Marx's statement that important to pursue the matter here any further. I would only objectivity was the primary material attribute of all things and relations. This links up with the idea already mentioned that F时amt单订甲减m objectification is a natural means by which man masters the world critic in Berlin from 1931 to 1933. For it was not just the problem and as such it can be either a positive or a negative fact By con- of mimesis that occupied the forefront of my attention, but also trast, alienation is a special variant of that activity that becomes definite social conditions. This completely shattered involved me in a critique of naturalistic tendencies. For all the theoretical foundations of what had been the particular naturalism is based on the idea of the photographic reflection achievement of History and Class Consciousness. The book became of reality. The emphasis on the antithesis between realism and wholly alien to me just as my earlier writings had become by naturalism is absent from both bourgeois and vulgar-Marxist 1918-19. It suddenly became clear to me that if I wished to give theories but is central to the dialectical theory of reflection body to these new theoretical insights I would have to start again hence also to an aesthetics in the spirit of Marx. Although these remarks do not belong here, strictly speaking, f It was my intention at the time to publish a statement of my from scratch they were necessary to indicate the direction and the implications mpt to do so proved a failure are(the manu- of the change brought about by my realisation that History and script has since been lost). I was not much concerned about it ly attem Class Consciousness was based on mistaken assumptions, It is these then as i was intoxicated with the prospect of a new start. But implications that give me the right to say that this was the point also realised that extensive research and many detours would where my apprenticeship in Marxism and hence my whole be needed before I could hope to be inwardly in a position to youthful development came to an end correct the errors of History and Class Consciousness and to provide All that remains is for me to offer some comments on my
xXXVlll HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION(1967) notorious self-criticism of History and Class Consciousness. I must NOTE begin by confessing that having once discarded any of my works I In Georg Lukas gum si I remain indifferent to them for the whole of my life. A year urtstag, Aufba n,I955 fter the publication of The Soul and the Forms( Die Seele und die Hited by 1967,pp,323 Formen), for example, I wrote a letter of thanks to Margarethe 2 Development of the Mode 9ll(in Susmann for her review of the book. In it i observed that"both the book and its form had become quite alien to me". It had been the 3 Ibid. in german translation, 2nd Edition, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1963, P 5 and also the 3rd same with the Theory of the NoDel and it was the same now in the 4 Theorien uber den Mehrwert, Il, 1, Stuttgart, 1921 case of History and Class Consciousness. I returned to the Sovict Lenin, Werk, Wien-Berlin, IV, II, P) Union in 1933 with every prospect of frutful activity: the oppos 6 Georg Lukacs, History and Clas Conea 6 f. pp309 f. tional role of the magazine Literaturni Kritik on questions of literary theory in the years 1934-39 is well known. Tactically I of this edition it was, however, necessary to distance myself publicly from History and Class Consciousness so that the real partisan warfare gainst official and semi-official theories of literature would not 67,pp.87f e impeded by counter-attacks in which my opponents would have been objectively in the right in my view, however narrow- minded they might otherwise be. Of course, in order to publish 13 In Internationale Literatur, Vol 3, No. 2, Moscow, 1933, pp.95-126 a self-criticism it was necessary to adopt the current official jargon. This is the only conformist element in the declaration I nade at this time. It too was an entry-ticket to all further partis warfare: the difference between this declaration and my earlier retraction of the Blum Theses is merely' that I sincerely believe that History and Class Consciousmess was mistaken and I think that to this day When, later on, the errors enshrined in the book were converted into fashionable notions, I resisted the attempt to identify these with my own ideas and in this too I believe I was in the right. The four decades that have elapsed since the appearance of History and Class Consciousness, the changed situation in the struggle for a true Marxist method, my own production during this period, all these factors may perhaps king a less one-sided view now. It is my task to establish how far particular, rightly-conceived tendencies in History and Class Consciousness really produced fruitful results in my own later activities and perhaps in those of others. That would be to raise a whole complex of questions whose resolution I may be allowed to leave to the judgement of histor Budapest, March 1967