GEORG LUKACS' MARXISM

GEORG LUKACS

GEORG LUKACS' MARXISM ALIENATION, DIALECTICS,

REVOLUTION

A Study in Utopia and Ideology

by

VICTOR ZITTA (PH. n.)

Assistant Professor of Political Science

at Marquette University

Introduction by

HAROLD D. LASSWELL

rate University Law School

-• SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA. B.V. 1964

ISBN 978-94-017-6724-8 ISBN 918-94-017-6812-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-6812-2

Copyright, 1964, by Springer Science+BHSiness Media Dordrecht

Originalfy published f?y Martinus NijhojJ, The Hague, Netherlands in 1964

S qftcorer reprint of the hardcoVI!T 1st edition 1964

All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form.

In Memory cif my Father

and t1!Y brother Richard

... I never judge a writer before I have studied him thoroughly. But, to take as a norm the warning to be cautious, out of fear for a possible error or because of the eventual judgement of later epochs, - this I will not accept ... If I have erred frequently, the historians of the future will be right ...

Georg Lukacs to Anna Seghers, 28 July, 1938.

GEORG LUKACS' VITA

Georg Lukäcs was bom on the 13 of April, 1885 at Budapest, to parents of Jewish origin, members of the aristocracy. (This is why his name appears with a von till 1918). He began publishing in his teens; organized the Thalia theater in 1905, and took his doctorate in sociology under Simme1 in Berlin in 1906. He edited the famous literary monthly, Nyugat, and co-edited the sociologica1 joumal Huszadik Szazad. His lengthy essay "The Development of Modem Drama" received in 1908 the Kisfaludy-Society's first prize. In 1911 he published his famous The Souland The Forms which established his reputationbothat home and abroad. In 1912, he settled down at Heidelberg, and frequented the Weber-aftemoons where he met with Germany's most noted intellectuals at the time. In 1914 he was shaken by the outbreak ofWorld War I, and he composed his Theory ofthe Novel, published in 1915-16, in book form in 1920. The book had a great influence on literary scholars. The war tumed him into aJacobin in 1918 while he was lecturer in Aesthetics at Heidelberg. He joined the Hungarian Communist party. During the Hungarian Commune (1919) he was Commissar of Culture, and after its collapse, he emigrated to Vienna where he stayed till the 1ate thirties. In 1923 he published his famous History and Classconsciousness, and became involved in many intellectual debates. In 1927 he was imprisoned by the Austrians for his subversive activities, and was about to be extradited to the Hungarians who had passed a death sentence against him. Thomas Mann intervened, and the Austrian President refused extradition. From 1930-1931 he lived in Moscow as Research Associate at the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Institute, but he retumed to Berlin ( 1931-1933) active in various literary societies of the extreme Left. In 1933 he emi­grated to Russia to work as Research Associate of the Philosophical Institute of the Academy ofSciences. He edited Oj Hang, Das Wort, and Internationale Literatur, which appealed to the United Front audience. His criticism of Sodalist art brought him into conflict ( 1938) with his Soviet colleagues. In 1945 he retumed to Budapest as Professor of Aesthetics and Cultural Philosophy and as member ofvarious academic societies, plus member of Parliament. His publications followed the line he persued in the mid-thirties on art as weil as politics which brought him into conflict with the party and led to his comparative isolation. In 1956 he was again active in the debates of the Petöfi Circle, and he nourished the flames of rebelliousness by criticizing the Party. His ab1e exposition of a policy of co-existence with the West, and also with the forces of progressive Catholicism, brought him into the Nagy Cabinet. He was the only member to vote against neutrality from the Warsaw pact. Taking refuge into the Yugoslav embassy, he was exiled into Roumania, but he was permitted toreturn soon (Aprill957) and devotehistime to his work. He stilllives in relative seclusion. His collccted works are being published in West Germany.

INTRODUCTION

Georg Lukacs is one of the rare figures in contemporary Marxism whose influence as a theoretician has been sufficiently proclaimed, denied and reaffirmed to justify the extended treatment he has re­ceived in the present book. At the age of twenty-six Lukacs established an international reputation as a critic with the publication of The Soul and the Forms. Eight years 1ater, shortly after p1unging into the politics of active rebellion, he was Commissar of Cu1ture in the Hungarian Commune of 1919. In 1923 he published History and Classconsciousness, the work upon which rests his reputation as a creative theorist of politics. During recent decades Lukacs has excelled in the art ofself..preservative discourse in the precarious rea1m of Stalin, Stalinists, and their succes­sors.

Fora few briefmonths history presented Lukacs with an opportunity to give relatively full expression to the drastic politica1 perspectives of a remarkab1y cu1tivated and destructively egocentric personality. Lukacs is presented by Zitta as one ofthe chiefarchitects ofthe terror that gave gris1y distinctiveness to the Hungarian uprising. The strategy is summa­rized in a few princip1es of manipu1ation: iso1ate every individual by a reign of terror, panic, and distrust; arouse se1f-accusations of guilt by administering random punishment for capricious ru1es; annihi1ate all values ofthe previous social and po1itical order. The steam roller aims to pu1verize individualities into a quaking mass that seeks security through submission to totalitarian command.

Passing over the question why Lukacs became an intellectual at all, Zitta proceeds directly to the problern of why his intellectuality took the direction it did. Restricting hirnself 1argely to Lukacs' published output, Zitta arrives at severa1 important findings. The first is that Lukacs was deep1y at odds with hirnself in his ro1e as a member of the intellectua1 dass of Hungary. He missed the most respected career, that of poet, because he had no ta1ent for poetry. At the same time Lukacs was insufficiently interested in, and gratified by, systematic analysis to become reconci1ed to permanent indenture to the academic phi1osophers of Germany.

The second finding is that Lukacs met his inner conflict by feeling

X INTRODUCTION

acutely alienated from other egos. Plagued by suicidal impulses Lukacs nevertheless concentrated with furious intensity upon literary communi­cations which gave public form to a private predicament.

Third, Lukcics attempted to swathe his wounded ego in mysticism. Unassuaged, Lukacs presently shifted to a dialectical perspective which provided a "historicist, immanent, and activist orientation".

War and revolution blasted Lukcics from lifelong absorption in ego­nursing-punctuated by enigmatic public confessionals. Wrapped in the private grandeur of superior wisdom and self-exemption from restraint, Lukcics seized the opportunity of 1919 to terrorize his fellows.

Zitta's exposition and evaluation of History and Classconsciousness does justice to the circumstances which account for its exceptional position in the Iiterature ofMarxism. The publication was not a book; it is more accurately described as a collection of related lectures, essays and reviews. The inner agitation of the speaker-writer communicated an undertone of excitement, prophecy and revelation to a host of suscepti­b1e readers. The plastic prose seemed to project form and substance in the intonations of an authentic master. Under Zitta's microscope, however, confusions and contradictions come into the open. The un­avoidable inference is that the "dialectical method" is a fraud; worse, it licenses the homicidal mania of self-selected supermen.

It is undeniable that Zitta has established a strong case for his analysis ofwhy Lukcics wrote and acted as he did. To recognize this is not necessarily to concur in all the generalizations which the author bases upon the Lukacs material, especially the "necessary" consequences of one doctrinal position for another, or ofbelieffor behavior. The Lu­kacs case exhibits a constellation offactors which tends to account for a sequence that began in egocentric misery, sought surcease in the "whole truth" of mysticism, and ended in the "who1e truth" of world revolutionary cataclysm. Contemporary knowledge of the dynamics of ideology will be deeper when comparable studies analyze careers that follow a different sequence, passing from misery to activism to mystic withdrawal. Or careers unlike the Lukacs case-which conformed behavior tobelief-that fit the more usual pattern ofbelief and partial conformity. Scrupulous studies like the present are of permanent im­portance in illuminating the context in which private and public crises provide scope for egocentric personalities to murder in the name ofthe "whole truth", secular or sacred.

HAROLD D. LASSWELL Edward ]. Phelps Professor of Law and Political Science Tale Universib'

PREFACE

It was Professor James H. Meisel from the University ofMichigan who had first suggested that I come to grips with Lukacs,- a suggestion for which I am grateful. My correspondence with him on the progress of this work occupies a bulky file, illustrating quantitatively the extent of my qualitative indebtedness to him. His tireless efforts have permitted me to suffer the truth that one begins to write only after one has already written, that the process of articulation is not at all identical with the art of communication.

Dr. Harold Swayze from the University ofWashington, and Dr. Ga­bor Erdelyi from Stanford University, have been most helpful, particu­larly Dr. Swayze. Professors Frank Grace and George Peek, from the University of Michigan, have also helped throughout my fervent in­tellectual engagement with Lukacs.

The Department ofPolitical Science with Professor J ames K. Pollock, and the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan, have intervened materially to support this work. I am likewise indebted to the Committee on Research at Mar­quette University; particularly to Father Lawrence Friedrich, Dean of the Graduate School, for his swift and splendid cooperation. I have also welcomed, and incorporated, the comments and suggestions of my publisher.

My indebtedness to Lukics hirnself is not small. I have incurred it already as a student at the Pazmany University at Budapest in 1946/47 when taking his course on "The Origins of Dialectic Thinking in Regel"; also while interpreting his writings. One learns often as much from those one is impelled to oppose as from those one happens to emulate. Finally, even those who know my wife Dorothea do not sense the extent to which her loyalty, devotion, cooperation contributed to the writing and publishing of this book.

Marquette University Milwaukee, September, 1963.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Vita VII

Introduction by HAROLD D. LASSWELL, rate University Law School IX

Priface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI

INTRODUCTION • • . • • • 1

1. Who is Georg Lukacs? 6

2. Unmethodic Preliminaries . 11

PART I. ALIENATION AND THE DIALECTIC (1908-1916) 17

introduction . . . . . . . . . . . 19

I. Promethean Impulsions ( 1908) 21

II. Alienation and Mysticism (1909-1912) 37 1. 'Subjective Idealism' . . . . . 37 2. Romanticism and Disintegration 39 3. Mysticism . . . . . . . . . . 43

Ill. The Poverty ofthe Spirit and the Dialectic (1912-1916) 49 1. Among Gontemporaries . . . . . . . 49 2. 'Gnostic Activism'. . . . . . . . . . 54 3. Hope in and through time (1914-1915) 63

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

PART II. RoMANTICISM AND jAcoBINISM (1917-1919) 75

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

IV. 'Historically Necessary Illusions' (1917-1918) 79

1. 'History's Nod to Anguished Romantics 79 2. 'I Go to Prove My Soul' . . . 83 3. Societalization of Mad Dreams . . . . 86

XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS

V. Terror-Stricken Yogi as a Commissar (1919) 1. The Inevitable Catastrophe. . . . . . 2. The Cultura1 Commissar's Brain-washing

Campaign

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PART JII. HISTORY AND CLASSCONSCIOUSNESS (1919-1923)

Introduction . . . . . . .

VI. Hegel-Marx-Luk:ics 1. Marxism prior to Neo-Hegelianism 2. Neo-Hegelianism and Marxism 3. Enter Luk:ics. . . .

VII. The Schism of Orthodoxy 1. The Batt1e for Orthodoxy 2. Reactions to his Book . .

VIII. From Alienation to Historical Transformation . 1. Alienation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Alienation in Lukacs . . . . . . . . . 3. Objectification in 'Bourgeois' Philosophy . 4. Luk:ics' Marxian Break-Through 5. Summary and Critique . . . . .

IX. Reification and Salvation 1. The 'Proletariat' as a Commodity . 2. The Redeemer and the Redeemed 3. Critique . . . . . . . . . . . .

X. From Self-Estrangement to Restratification 1. Marxism and Elitism . . . . . . . 2. Luk:ics' Criteria for a Marxist Ruling Class . 3. Terror and 'Classconsciousness' 4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

XI. Luk:ics' Dialectic: Reflection of Chaos in Internality 1. Lukacs' Dialectic . . . . . 2. Lukacs' 'Floating Concepts' 3. The Category of 'Totality' . 4. The Category of 'Mediation' 5. Conclusion. . . . . . . .

92 92

98

111

115

117

119 119 125 128

131 131 139

144 144 148 152 160 166

170 171 174 179

183 183 188 193 195

200 202 205 207 210 213

TABLE OF CONTENTS XV

XII. Lukacs' Dialectic Man: Charismatic Self-Perception of Anomic Supermen . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

1. Marxism and the 'Superman' . . . . . . . 217 2. Young Lukacs' Strained Anticipations and

Unexpected Fulfillments . . . . . . 218 3. The Marxist Superman . . . . . . 220 4. The 'Morality' of the 'Dialectic Man' 223 5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . 225

XIII. Lukacs' Theory of the Revolution and the Institution: From Human Heteronomy to Inhuman Autonomy. 229

1. Lenin's and Marx's Theories ofRevolution . 231 2. Lukcics' Theory of Revolution. . 234 3. Lukacs' Theory of Organization. 235 4. Conclusions . . . . 243

XIV. Summary and Conclusions 246

BIBLIOGRAPHY • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 253 I. Lukacs' Work Published in Book Form. . . 253

1. Early Work on Literature and Esthetics 253 2. Early Work on Marxist Philosophy 254 3. Later Works on Marxist Philosophy 254 4. Works on Marxist Esthetics. . . 256 5. Works on German Literature . . . 259 6. Works on Hungarian Literature 261 7. Works on Russian and French Realism. 262 8. Goileeted works of Georg Lukacs . . . 263

II. Lukacs' Hungarian and German Essays in Periodicals 264 111. Lukacs' Essays in English, Russian, and Other Languages 282 IV. Select Bibliography on Lukacs 285 V. Select Bibliography on Marxism 287

VI. Select General Bibliography 291

Index ..••.......... 295

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ABBREVIATIONS

"Die Armut am Geiste," Neue Blätter, Nr. 5-6, 1912, pp. 67-92. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Ästhetik (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1956). Thomas Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1920). Deutsche Realisten des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1956). Existentialismus oder Marxismus? (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1951 ). Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (Berlin: Malik V erlag, 1923). Georg Lukdcs zum siebzigsten Geburtstag (Berlin: Aufbau V er­lag, 1955). Goethe und seine Zeit (Berlin: Aufbau V erlag, 1955). lrodalom es Demokracia (Budapest: Szikra Kiado, 1946). Der Junge Hege! (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1954). Lenin, Eine Studie über den Zusammenhang seiner Gedanken (Berlin: Malik Verlag, 1924). "Metaphysik der Tragödie," Logos, 1911, pp. 79-91. Thomas Mann, The Magie Mountain, transl. H. T. Lowe­Porter (N ew Y ork: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955). Probleme des Realismus (Berlin: Aufbau V erlag, 1955). Die Russische Realisten in der Weltliteratur (Ber lin: Aufbau Verlag, 1953). Die Seele und die Formen (Berlin: Fleische! V erlag, 1911). Schicksalswende (2nd rev. ed., Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1956). Taktika es Ethika (Budapest: Közoktat<isügyi nepbiztossag kiadasa, 1919). Die Theorie des Romans (Berlin: Cassirer, 1920). Thomas Mann (5th rev. ed., Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1956). Oj Magvar Kulturairt (Budapest: Szikra Kiado, 1948). Wider den missverstandenen Realismus ( Harnburg: Claasen Verlag, 1958). Zerstörung der Vernunft (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1955).