Considerations on Western Marxism

Hardcover, 125 pages

English language

Published April 19, 1976 by Verso Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-902308-67-1

(1 review)

This synoptic essay considers the nature and evolution of the Marxist theory that developed in Western Europe, after the defeat of the proletarian rebellions in the West and the isolation of the Russian Revolution in the East in the early 1920s. It focuses particularly on the work of Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci; Adorno, Marcuse and Benjamin; Sartre and Althusser; and Della Volpe and Colletti, together with other figures within Western Marxism from 1920 to 1975. The theoretical production of each of these thinkers is related simultaneously to the practical fate of working-class struggles and to the cultural mutations of bourgeois thought in their time. The philosophical antecedents of the various school within this tradition - Lukácsian, Gramscian, Frankfurt, Sartrean, Althusserian and Della Volpean - are compared, and the specific innovations of their respective systems surveyed. The structural unity of 'Western Marxism', beyond the diversity of its individual thinkers, is then …

This synoptic essay considers the nature and evolution of the Marxist theory that developed in Western Europe, after the defeat of the proletarian rebellions in the West and the isolation of the Russian Revolution in the East in the early 1920s. It focuses particularly on the work of Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci; Adorno, Marcuse and Benjamin; Sartre and Althusser; and Della Volpe and Colletti, together with other figures within Western Marxism from 1920 to 1975. The theoretical production of each of these thinkers is related simultaneously to the practical fate of working-class struggles and to the cultural mutations of bourgeois thought in their time. The philosophical antecedents of the various school within this tradition - Lukácsian, Gramscian, Frankfurt, Sartrean, Althusserian and Della Volpean - are compared, and the specific innovations of their respective systems surveyed. The structural unity of 'Western Marxism', beyond the diversity of its individual thinkers, is then assessed, in a balance-sheet that contrasts its heritage with the tradition of 'classical' Marxism that preceded it, and with the commanding problems which will confront any historical materialism to succeed it.

(Source: Verso Books)

9 editions

ilchinealach reviewed Considerations on Western Marxism by Perry Anderson

Review of 'Considerations on Western Marxism' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

whistle-stop tour going from marx all the way through to mandel. as you can generally rely on in anderson, this is very concise, well-written and even entertaining

the basic account anderson outlines is the very brief rise and protracted fall of the dynamic represented by the later years of the second international, when mass proletarian politics coincided with revolutionary theory. my use of the phrase 'second international' is even probably a bit misleading, as anderson points out that lenin, luxemburg's writings were all written, translated and popularised in different orders and rates, meaning there are long periods in which debates contemporary marxists might understand as taking place in the 'real time' of the publication record are in fact missing each other by months or years. anderson's particularly good on the chronology here. the opening chapters are the first time i've read someone on the shortcomings of the body of theory …

whistle-stop tour going from marx all the way through to mandel. as you can generally rely on in anderson, this is very concise, well-written and even entertaining

the basic account anderson outlines is the very brief rise and protracted fall of the dynamic represented by the later years of the second international, when mass proletarian politics coincided with revolutionary theory. my use of the phrase 'second international' is even probably a bit misleading, as anderson points out that lenin, luxemburg's writings were all written, translated and popularised in different orders and rates, meaning there are long periods in which debates contemporary marxists might understand as taking place in the 'real time' of the publication record are in fact missing each other by months or years. anderson's particularly good on the chronology here. the opening chapters are the first time i've read someone on the shortcomings of the body of theory which proceeded this period in a way that seems correct, i.e. what marx gets wrong, as well as the lapses into pessimism, cultural analysis and academic philosophy that characterises much of what comes after

lenin emerges as the hero of the piece, representing as he does the first figure capable of bringing his theories into effect in his construction of the world's first worker's state, and while anderson notes where trotsky was right, he refreshingly does not go in for beatifying him, but draws real, non-moralising attention to his shortcomings and misdiagnoses. the frankfurt school and the intellectual milieu most readily summoned up when one reads the phrase 'western marxism' are the villains, for their obscurantism, distance from the working class and preference for pre, or anti-Hegelian philosophy, his take-down of althusser's philosophy, presented here as an attempt to marxify leibniz, with science doing the work formerly undertaken by god perceiving itself, is very satisfying

the major shortcoming is pointed to the title, western marxism does indeed entail a non-discussion of maoism, marxist currents within third-worldism, there are only bits here on the peasantry or underdevelopments that could be better contextualised

Subjects

Socialism -- Europe -- History