Michael Lowy Georg Lukacs: From Romanticism to Bolshevism Michael Lowy NLB Georg Lukacs - From Romanticism to Bolshevism Translated by Patrick Camiller Pour une sociologie des intellectuels rivolutionnaires - L' evolution politique de Lukdcs 1908-1929 was first published by Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1976 0 Presses Universitaires de France This edition first published 1979 CJNLB, I979 NLB, 7 Carlisle Street, London W 1 The translation of Chapter V, 'Luk:ics and Stalinism', was made by Ann Clafferty and was first published, in slightly different form, in New Left Review, 9 I (May-June I975). Filmset in 'Monophoto' Ehrhardt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by Lowe & Brydone Printers, Thetford, Norfolk Bound by Kemp Hall Bindery, Oxford ISBN 8609 I 003 2 for !LANA co-author of this work Contents Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 9 I Towards a Sociology of the Anti-Capitalist Intelligentsia 15 r Intellectuals as a Social Category r 5 2 The Anti-Capitalist Radicalization of Intellectuals r6 3 The Anti-Capitalism of Intellectuals in Germany 22 4 The Revolutionary Intelligentsia in Hungary 67 II How an Intellectual Becomes a Revolutionary: Lukacs 1909-19 9' I Lukics's Anti-Capitalism and Tragic View of the World 9' 2 The Passage to Communism 128 III Lukacs's Leftist Period (1919-:n) '45 I Ethical Ultra-Leftism: 1919 148 2 Political Leftism: 1920 ' 54 3 Left Bolshevism: 1921 r6o 4 The Problematic of the Reign of Freedom r6s IV 'History and Class Consciousness': 1923 r68 v Lukacs and Stalinism '93 Index 215 Acknowledgements I would like first of all to express my profound gratitude to Professor Louis-Vincent Thomas ofl'Universit€:Rene-Descartes, supervisor of my doctoral thesis, whose contribution to the direction of my research was of inestimable value. My thanks are also due to all those who made criticisms or suggestions: Georges Haupt, GyOrgy Litvan, Sami Nalr, Reginaldo Di Piero, Roberto Schwarz, Charles Urjewicz. Particular thanks are due to Ilona Duczynska, whose letters were a stimulant and a very great assistance to me, to my fr iends of the 'Budapest School' - Agnes Heller, Ferenc Feher, and Gyorgy Markus - whose criticisms, amicable and impassioned as they were, enhanced my under­ standing of Lukacs's work, and to Professor Ernst Bloch, who kindly accorded me an interview. I would also like to thank the researchers who kindly agreed to share the fr uits of their labours with me: Laura Boella (Pisa), Paul Breines (New York), Eva Karadi (Budapest), Leandro Konder (Bonn). Thanks are also due to Martha Dufournaud and Rita Kiss, who translated some of Lukacs's Hungarian writings for me. I am grateful to the personnel of the Lukacs Archive of Budapest (in particular Mr Ferenc Janossy, Lukacs's executor), the library of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, and the library ofthe Lelio Basso Foundation of Rome, all of whom allowed me access to their collections. Finally, I would like to express my debt to the late Lucien Goldmann, who introduced me to the writings of Luk<ics and whose method has largely inspired my own work. Introduction The problem of intellectuals who join the struggle of the proletariat is as : old as the workers' movement itself. Marx takes note of it in a famous passage of the Communist Manifesto: 'In times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact across the whole range of society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.' r These lines call for a number of comments. To start with, it is generally a portion of petty-bourgeois ideologues, rather than of the bourgeoisie itself, that goes over to the proletariat. The distinction is of great significance. In certain exceptional cases (Friedrich Engels!), individual bourgeois may pass to the side of the proletariat; but they do not constitute a fra ction, however small, of the dominant class. Next, although it is possible to compare such intellectuals with the nobles who rallied to the Third Estate, we should not overlook the fa ct that these are altogether distinct phenomena. There are two specific reasons for this. First, the enlightened aristocrats of the eighteenth century went over to a class that already occupied positions of economic power, if not actual hegemony, and could provide a whole range of material and social privileges to its various allies or ideologues. Clearly this is not the case for those 1 'Manifesto of the Communist Party', in Marx, The Revolutions of 181{8, Harmondsworth, 1978, p. 72 (translation modified). 10 intellectuals who side with the proletariat. Second, the extent of the shift has become much greater: whole sections of the petty-bourgeois intel­ ligentsia are involved, not just individual 'traitors to their class' such as the nobles who rallied to the assembly of the Third Estate in June 1789. It should fu rther be noted that the phenomenon arises not only when the struggle of the proletariat 'nears the decisive hour' or when the ruling class is 'in dissolution', but also during other stages of the class struggle. As the reaction of intellectuals to the victory of German fa scism illustrates, it may even develop after a defeat of the workers' movement. Finally, 'com­ prehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole' is dialecti­ cally related to a politico-ideological commitment that must be explained in sociological terms. It is often the choice of a proletarian class position that makes it possible for intellectuals to attain such theoretical insight.2 Few Marxist thinkers other than Gramsci have tried to explain this phenomenon, even though its extent and importance for the workers' movement have grown in the course of the twentieth century . Certainly Lenin, who was himself an illustrious case in point, stressed the crucial role played by revolutionary intellectuals in the ideological struggle against the bourgeoisie and in the construction of a vanguard party. But he made only a few points that are of help in understanding why such intellectuals side with the proletariat. The present work is, of course, only a partial and extremely limited contribution to a future Marxist sociology of the revolutionary intelligentsia. It seeks to explain Lukacs's political evolution until 1929 within the framework of a study of the radicalized intelligentsia of early-twentieth-century Germany and Hungary- and, in particular, those groups like the Max Weber Circle in Heidelberg and the Budapest 'Sunday Circle', in which Lukacs was directly involved. Our twofold aim is to analyse the political ideas of a man often hailed as the greatest twentieth-century Marxist philosopher, and to grasp Lukacs's ideological evolution as a case of exemplary significance for a sociological understanding of the problem of revolutionary intellectuals. In studying 'the Lukacs phenomenon', then, we shall employ the method of historical materialism-or, to be more precise, an interpretation of the latter which is largely inspired by Lukacs's own History and Class Consciousness. We could almost say that this is not only a Marxist study of a Marxist thinker, but a Lukacsian analysis of Lukacs. 2 On the relationship between 'science' and 'ideology', 'a class standpoint' and 'objectivity', see M. L6wy, Dialectique et rivolution, Paris, 1973. Introduction I I Since our starting point will accordingly be the category of totality, we should first spell out the methodological consequences this involves. 1. In its political, aesthetic, and other aspects, the ideology of a given writer can be understood only in relation to his thought as a whole; and his thought must in turn be inserted into the world view that provides its structure of meaning. 2. Being an aspect of a concrete historical totality, a particular ideology, theory, or world view must be conceived in its dialectical connection with the relations of production, the class-struggle process, political conflict, and other ideological currents. More specifically, it should be understood in its relation to the way in which the various social classes, layers, and categories think and live: their interests, aspirations, desires, and aversions. 3· Dialectical understanding of a historical event - whether it be economic, political, or ideological - involves grasping its role within the social totality, within the unity of the historical process. Abstract, isolated 'facts' must be dissolved and conceived as moments of this unitary process. 4· The relationship with the historical, socio-economic, and politico­ social totality is not a merely complementary aspect appended fr om without to the internal analysis of ideological systems and cultural products. This relationship illuminates fr om within the structure of meaning of the politic3.1, philosophical, or literary enterprise in question, enabling us to understand processes such as the ideological evolution of the author. It is therefore a key element in interpreting the very meaning and content of his work. 3 5· Research of this kind inevitably goes beyond the traditional com­ partmentalization of academic disciplines: even when it lends priority to one particular field ofinvestigation (in this case, the sociological field), it involves an approach that is at once economic, sociological, historical, political, philosophical, and so on. In History and Class Consciousness Lukacs makes a fa mous observation on which a great deal of ink has flowed: 'It is not the primacy of economic 3 See L.