Marxism

The Break with Marxism

The Break with Marxism

Could we, while saving the substance of these analyses and positions, continue to clothe them in the vestments of Marxism and claim that they constituted its continuation and were preserving its true spirit? In a sense, modesty aside, they did so, they are the only ones to have done so. But it had come to the point where continuation had required destruction, the survival of the spirit required that the body be put to death.

The Contradiction of Trotsky - Claude Lefort

Submitted by libcom on Jul 25 2005 10:08

Claude Lefort writes on Leon Trotsky for Socialisme Ou Barbarie.

(Translated from LES TEMPS MODERNES, 39 (1948-1949) in "The Political Forms of Modern Society)

Let us hold out our hands to each other and rally around our Party's committees. We must not forget even for a minute that only the Party committees can worthily lead us, only they will light our way to the Promised Land.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon

THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS NAPOLEON

On December 2 1851, followers of President Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon's nephew) broke up the Legislative Assembly and established a dictatorship. A year later, Louis Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon III.

Mao Tse Tung and the Chinese Revolution

Submitted by libcom on Jul 25 2005 00:40

Socialisme Ou Barbarie's 1967 theses on Mao and the Chinese revolution.

The Marxist Philosophy of History

THE MARXIST PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

The marxist theory of history claims in the first place to be scientific, i.e. to be a generalisation susceptible to validation or challenge at the level of empirical research. As a scientific theory, which it undoubtedly is, it was inevitable that it should share the fate of every important such theory.

The Standpoint of the Proletariat

Georg Lukacs
from History & Class Consciousness

III: The Standpoint of the Proletariat
In his early Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Marx gave a lapidary account of the special position of the proletariat in society and in history, and the standpoint from which it can function as the identical subject-object of the social and historical processes of evolution.

Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat

Georg Lukacs
from History & Class Consciousness

Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat

"To be radical is to go to the root of the matter. For man, however, the root is man himself."
Marx: Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.

IT is no accident that Marx should have begun with an analysis of commodities when, in the two great works of his mature period, he set out to portray capitalist society in its totality and to lay bare its fundamental nature. For at this stage in the history of mankind there is no problem that does not ultimately lead back to that question and there is no solution that could not be found in the solution to the riddle of commodity-structure.

What is Orthodox Marxism?

Georg Lukacs
from History & Class Consciousness

What is Orthodox Marxism?

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." Marx: Theses on Feuerbach.

THIS question, simple as it is, has been the focus of much discussion in both proletarian and bourgeois circles. But among intellectuals it has gradually become fashionable to greet any profession of faith in Marxism with ironical disdain.

Class Consciousness

Georg Lukacs
from History & Class Consciousness

Class Consciousness
The question is not what goal is envisaged for the time being by this or that member of the proletariat, or even by the proletariat as a whole. The question is what is the proletariat and what course of action will it be forced historically to take in conformity with its own nature.
Marx: The Holy Family.

The Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought, continued

Georg Lukacs
from History & Class Consciousness

II: The Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought, continued