The Political itinerary of Georg Lukacs

[p035] Political Itinerary of Georg Lukacs "Parle 1848: frightened the German SS eT _ ee — bourgeoisie into the arms of Prussian absolutism resolute fraction of this nobility was decided by the activity and uprising of the poor population of the capital. And this nobility remained ‘revolu- tionary’ to the extent to which is was to act under the pressure of these masses. In seeking the reasons for such an attitude, which distinguishes a Kossuth so favourably from the Frankfurt Assembly chatterboxes, we must, in addition to more backward class conditions, raise the question of nationalism. The middle nobility in Hungary was a victim of the crisis of feudalism, a crisis exacerbated by the subjection of the country to the House of Austria. The ‘illegal’ attack of the latter aggravated the nationalism of this nobility, rich in the traditions of secular independence Struggles, nourished by nascent bourgeois nationalism. It is on the decades which follow, particularly on the atmosphere at the time of Lukacs’ youth, that the characterization of this nobility and its nationalism throws indispensable light. Engels saw the significance and importance of revolutionary Hungary’s war of independence in its immediately European character. But if the revolutionary war of independence objectively had this European character, its leading class was above all charac- terized by its national narrowness combined with a stupid sense of legality. It was a nationalism fed on glorious traditions, with more nostalgia than dynamism, drawing from the past rather than turned towards the future. As the nobility was historically condemned, its nationalism looked on the past with a pride and melancholy full of irritation and impatience for the present. Such a nationalism could play a certain progressive role in 1848-1849, despite its strong, reactionary stench. But what about its future? The combined strength of the Holy Alliance crushed the revolution. This defeat became in turn the source of a new delay in the country’s evolu- tion. The re-established order in Central and Eastern Europe was based on the powerfully 79 a % _o~ =

[p036] - 4 : + aN PG ie ot, a et ; e revolutionary plots of all the governments’. Engels’ Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany is the analysis of this betrayal. The con- clusion that Marx and Engels drew from it was formulated in 1850 in the famous ‘Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League’. We must quote a passage from the Address, whose ten pages or so of text have, until now, been the bugbear of all the revisionists and class collabora- tors who have tried to cast it into oblivion. Marx and Engels wrote: ‘Whilst the petty-bourgeois democrats want to end the revolution . . . quickly if possible, our interests and tasks lie in making the revolution permanent, until all the more or less established classes are swept aside, the proletariat conquers power, and the unity-of the workers is so advanced, not only in one country but in all the dominant countries of the world that competition among the workers of these countries ceases, and at Jeast the dedsive productive forces are concentrated in the hands of the working class.” In Hungary, much more backward than Ger- many or even Austria at the time, the very weak nascent bourgeoisie was under the leadership of the middle nobility, the leading class of the 1848- 1849 revolution. But if the German bourgeoisie, feeling the working class on its heels, could in 1848 only be counter-revolutionary, the middle nobility in Hungary was, so to speak, ‘naive’. It had seen nothing comparable to the revolt of the Silesian weavers who in 1844 terrified the German bourgeois. Thus the backwardness of Hungarian conditions becomes the revolutionary virtue of its middle nobility. The emancipation of the serfs, the introduction of parliamentarism and demo- cratic rights, could be more far-reaching than in Germany since they were realized particularly against the landowners, protected by the foreigner, tthe house of Austria. The rebellious middle nobility could only hope to hold power thanks to these measures. We must still not forget that the Passing of power into the hands of the most eee ’ er . Me me = : 2 = a Political Itinerary of Georg Lukacs —— _-—- resolute fraction of this nobility was decided by the activity and uprising of the poor population of the capital. And this nobility remained ‘revolu- tionary’ to the extent to which is was to act under the pressure of these masses. In seeking the reasons for such an attitude, which distinguishes a Kossuth so favourably from the Frankfurt Assembly chatterboxes, we must, in addition to more backward class conditions, raise the question of nationalism. The middle nobility in Hungary was a victim of the crisis of feudalism, a crisis exacerbated by the subjection of the country to the House of Austria. The ‘illegal’ attack of the latter aggravated the nationalism of this nobility, rich in the traditions of secular independence struggles, nourished by nascent bourgeois nationalism. It is on the decades which follow, particularly on the atmosphere at the time of Lukacs’ youth, that the characterization of this nobility and its nationalism throws indispensable light. Engels saw the significance and importance of revolutionary Hungary’s war of independence in its immediately European character. But if the revolutionary war of independence objectively had this European character, its leading class was above all charac- terized by its national narrowness combined with a stupid sense of legality. It was a nationalism fed on glorious traditions, with more nostalgia than dynamism, drawing from the past rather than turned towards the future. As the nobility was historically condemned, its nationalism looked on the past with a pride and melancholy full of irritation and impatience for the present. Such a nationalism could play a certain progressive role in 1848-1849, despite its strong, reactionary stench. But what about its future? The combined strength of the Holy Alliance crushed the revolution. This defeat became in turn the source of a new delay in the country’s evolu- tion. The re-established order in Central and Eastern Europe was based on the powerfully 79 arms of Prussian absolutism ina ee Sh:

[p037] favourably distinguished from Frankfurt chatterboxes reinforced vestiges of the past. The development of capitalism was, however, an irreversible process despite the strait-jacket of feudal forces which weighed so heavily. This was the fate shared by Russia, Germany organized by Prussia, and the monarchies, all under the political rod of the feudal lords. This ‘Prussian path’ of capitalist development, realized from above, always behind, meant tremendous suffering for the workers and accumulated explosive national and social con- tradictions. The revolution was the last historical gasp of the middle nobility. Rebellious in 1848, it then renewed its alliance with the aristocracy and, after the reconciliation with the Hapsburgs, the whole nobility was charged with maintaining order over the peasantry and emergert working class, and also over the nascent nations of the Serbs, Croats, Slovaks and Rumanians. On the other hand it obtained a relative political autonomy under the henceforth Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Under this monarchy capitalist development, although distorted, restricted and deformed, was neverthe- less a real process. However, although embedded in the state apparatus, in the municipalities, thus continuing to play a leading political role, the middle nobility was in fact losing ground. Capitalist development was mocking its existence. Set in an overdone, limited and provincial nationalism nostalgic for a past gone for ever, this proud nobility placed itself outside of that development. It looked on industry, trade, the whole of capitalist evolution as something unworthy, especially as it was itself being ruined at the hands of the bankers and usurers, since it lacked capital. The life of its members, socially useless, clashed with that of their own ‘society’ in which these ruined nobles led an existence reviving the glorious past, a life of hunts and balls, even more costly than was the state administration in the hands of this closed caste. This was the fate of the ruined nobility over 80 Tonio Kroger’s dilemma Lukac’s quandary the vast territory of a Europe fettered by feudal vestiges and where capitalism was developing as it had in Prussia. The Hungarian ‘djentri’ had some- thing in common with the sad heroes of Gogol or Goncharov. Like industry, trade was regarded as unworthy of the nobility, and they completely and voluntarily left it to ‘unworthy’ beings, primarily to the popu- lation of German stock who were the agents of German and Austrian capital. The old national pride, the kingly contempt for the foreigner, were confounded by the ‘djentri’ with hatred towards industry and trade, rendering nationalism even more vacuous, sterile and aggressive, and making industry and trade ‘anti-national’. The hatred of ‘society’ for the rich foreigners was even greater, their social exclusion more complete than that of the ‘djentri’, and the political regime was entirely dependent upon them. The ideas of the ‘glorious’ ruling class penetrated all of Hungarian society; it influenced the peasantry, it created a particularly stifling atmosphere, an unsupportable aggressive nationalism, a spirit of servility skilled in distin- guishing between the castes. But at the same time, tre traditional ruling but impoverished group only lived thanks to the injections of gold from these ‘unworthy’ bourgeois. And ‘unworthy’ they were, Nourishing no less a hatred towards these useless ‘djentri’, the bankers, industrialists and even more the big grain merchants or usurers dreamed only of becoming members of ‘society’, of obtaining credentials of nobility. Among: these pariahs, the Jews, scarcely emancipated and often traders or usurers, were the most thorough outcasts. To be a Jew at that time in Hungary was to suffer all the contempt, aggression and discrimination that the dominant nobility of traditional Hungary showed towards that afflicted race. The Hungarian bour- geoisie was much more dominated by the feudal political order than in Germany. More dominated envious hatred of the moneyed men towards the ‘djentri’, and the condescending and contemptuous Fourth International Winter 1971/72

[p038] Kossuth favourably distinguished from Frankfurt chatterboxes reinforced vestiges of the past. The development of capitalism was, however, an irreversible process despite the strait-jacket of feudal forces which weighed so heavily. This was the fate shared by Russia, Germany organized by Prussia, and the monarchies, all under the political rod of the feudal lords. This ‘Prussian path’ of capitalist development, realized from above, always behind, meant tremendous suffering for the workers and accumulated explosive national and social con- tradictions. The revolution was the last historical gasp of the middle nobility. Rebellious in 1848, it then renewed its alliance with the aristocracy and, after the reconciliation with the Hapsburgs, the whole nobility was charged with maintaining order over the peasantry and emergert working class, and also over the nascent nations of the Serbs, Croats, Slovaks and Rumanians. On the other hand it obtained a relative political autonomy under the henceforth Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Under this monarchy capitalist development, although -distorted, restricted and deformed, was neverthe- less a real process. However, although embedded in the state apparatus, in the municipalities, thus continuing to play a leading political role, the middle nobility was in fact losing ground. Capitalist development was mocking its existence. Set in an overdone, limited and provincial nationalism nostalgic for a past gone for ever, this proud nobility placed itself outside of that development. It looked on industry, trade, the whole of capitalist evolution as something unworthy, especially as it was itself being ruined at the hands of the bankers and usurers, since it lacked capital. The life of its members, socially useless, clashed with that of their own ‘society’ in which these ruined nobles led an existence reviving the glorious past, a life of hunts and balls, even more costly than was the state administration in the hands of this closed caste. This was the fate of the ruined nobility over 80 Tonio Kroger's dilemma Lukac’s quandary the vast territory of a Europe fettered by feudal vestiges and where capitalism was developing as it had in Prussia. The Hungarian ‘djentri’ had some- thing in common with the sad heroes of Gogol or Goncharov. Like industry, trade was regarded as unworthy of the nobility, and they completely and voluntarily left it to ‘unworthy’ beings, primarily to the popu- lation of German stock who were the agents of German and Austrian capital. The old national pride, the kingly contempt for the foreigner, were confounded by the ‘djentri’ with hatred towards industry and trade, rendering nationalism even more vacuous, sterile and aggressive, and making industry and trade ‘anti-national’. The hatred of ‘society’ for the rich foreigners was even greater, their social exclusion more complete than that of the ‘djentri’, and the political regime was entirely dependent upon them. The ideas of the ‘glorious’ ruling class penetrated all of Hungarian society; it influenced the peasantry, it created a particularly stifling atmosphere, an unsupportable aggressive nationalism, a spirit of servility skilled in distin- guishing between the castes. But at the same time, tre traditional ruling but impoverished group only lived thanks to the injections of gold from these ‘unworthy’ bourgeois. And ‘unworthy’ they were, Nourishing no less a hatred towards these useless ‘djentri’, the bankers, industrialists and even more the big grain merchants or usurers dreamed only of becoming members of ‘society’, of obtaining credentials of nobility. Among: these pariahs, the Jews, scarcely emancipated and often traders or usurers, were the most thorough outcasts. To be a Jew at that time in Hungary was to suffer all the contempt, aggression and discrimination that the dominant nobility of traditional Hungary showed towards that afflicted race. The Hungarian bour- geoisie was much more dominated by the feudal political order than in Germany. More dominated envious hatred of the moneyed men towards the ‘djentri’, and the condescending and contemptuous Fourth International Winter 1971/72

[p039] because it was weaker and less national. The familiarity of ‘society’ with the ‘usurers’ were also more virulent. But to be a Jew or a big merchant with millions or perhaps a freshly-bought title forced ‘fine society’ to feign respect which exceeded these limits. The damned and divided souls of the bourgeoisie of that part of Europe, a backward bourgeoisie, in Hungary a sort of comprador, ‘ersatz’ by nature, was particularly sharply reflected among the newly rich and ennobled Jews. It was into such a family that Georg Lukacs was born. He was born in Budapest in 1885 of a recently ennobled Jewish family. To be born into such a - milieu, full of contradictions, forces every mind to open its eyes, creates tensions and rebellions. His consciousness was awakened very early. As he wrote himself in his final autobiographical account (in 1969), from the age of puberty he was against his Hungarian milieu, against the ‘world of Jews and djentri’, he was a ‘fighter impregnated with the feeling of being a foreigner’. He himself tells how, at that age, he had already generalized on his rejection of the family milieu through to the rejec- tion of patricians and bourgeois and all of Hungarian society. Knowing the stifling atmosphere of the everyday life of all ‘good families’ one can fully understand and approve this juvenile revolt. He sought refuge in contemporary foreign literature. At 14 to 15 he avidly read Ibsen and Strindberg, Hebbel and Hauptmann, Flaubert and Verlaine. These attempted escapes from his milieu, Lukacs tells us, were stressed by exaltation of international modernism against Hungarianism, ‘Narrow conservatism’. In his short autobiography written in 1933 (‘My Path to Marxism’, in Georg Lukacs Writings on Ideology and _ Politics, Luchterband Verlag, 1967) he notes that while still at school he read both the Communist Mani- festo and the writings of Thomas Mann at about the same time. He himself writes that it was the novels. Mann’s ‘novellas’ which impressed him. Sixty years later he was to write of Mann: Political Itinerary of Georg Lukacs lism fed > ‘I was still a schoolboy when I impressions of his work. The problem of Tonio Kréger primarily determined the main themes df youthful works,’ What, then, is the problem of Tonio Kréger? He is the ‘isolated bourgeois’, whose problem is the impossibility of reconciling art with bourgeois life, whilst at the same time wanting both that life and art itself. Mann throughout his life, with great artistic force, expressed the fundamental dilemma of the bourgeoisie in the period of its decline. Not of a bourgeoisie in general, but precisely one which had failed in its revolution, and was no longer capable of fighting absolutism. Mann, from his book Buddenbrooks (1900) through Tonio Kréger and Royal Highness, to The Magic Mountain describes, analyses and interprets the decadence of the bourgeoisie. In a masterly manner, his novels express the anguish of the bourgeoisie. He bases himself on sympathy for that class sliding down the slope of history. He turns to the past with a certain nostalgia, to a time when the bourgeoisie was strong and full of life. In his works the proletariat is completely absent, non-existent. And since the writer main- tains the incompatibility of reconciling (bourgeois) life with art and is unable to see the working class, he is deeply pessimistic. From this pessimism are sometimes born attempts to regenerate the bourgeoisie. Here we grasp the meaning of that ‘internal analysis of Mann’s writings, which occupied me throughout my life’, of which Lukacs speaks. His interest in literature and particularly drama grew. He personally felt the attraction and tension of contradictions, their tragedy expressed in drama and also in the works of Thomas Mann. The basis of these contradictions, reflected in contemporary literature, is that ultimately there is no longer any place in life for Life. In terminology familiar to the period, the bourgeois intelligentsia expressed the impossibility of realizing a human life in the 81 on glorious traditions, more nostalgic ~_— s - . ~ a ye had the first

[p040] ; eo e & _ Budapest 1848: nationalis because it was weaker and less national. The familiarity of ‘society’ with the ‘usurers’ were also more virulent. But to be a Jew or a big merchant with millions or perhaps a freshly-bought title forced ‘fine society’ to feign respect which exceeded these limits. The damned and divided souls of the bourgeoisie of that part of Europe, a backward bourgeoisie, in Hungary a sort of comprador, ‘ersatz’ by nature, was particularly sharply reflected among the newly rich and ennobled Jews. It was into such a family that Georg Lukacs was born. He was born in Budapest in 1885 of a recently ennobled Jewish family. To be born into such a milieu, full of contradictions, forces every mind to open its eyes, creates tensions and rebellions. His consciousness was awakened very early. As he wrote himself in his final autobiographical account (in 1969), from the age of puberty he was against his Hungarian milieu, against the ‘world of Jews and djentri’, he was a ‘fighter impregnated with the feeling of being a foreigner’. He himself tells how, at that age, he had already generalized on his rejection of the family milieu through to the rejec- tion of patricians and bourgeois and all of Hungarian society. Knowing the stifling atmosphere of the everyday life of all ‘good families’ one can fully understand and approve this juvenile revolt. He sought refuge in contemporary foreign literature. At 14 to 15 he avidly read Ibsen and Strindberg, Hebbel and Hauptmann, Flaubert and Verlaine. These attempted escapes from his milieu, Lukacs tells us, were stressed by exaltation of international modernism against Hungarianism, ‘Narrow conservatism’. In his short autobiography written in 1933 (‘My Path to Marxism’, in Georg Lukacs_ Writings on Ideology and _ Politics, Luchterband Verlag, 1967) he notes that while still at school he read both the Communist Mani- festo and the writings of Thomas Mann at about the same time. He himself writes that it was the novels, Mann’s ‘novellas’ which impressed him. Sixty years later he was to write of Mann: % +} Political Itinerary of Georg Lukacs m fed on = eA 3 * need eX % Se . tyes? da at 7 % «f 4 s traditions, more nostalgic than dynamic ra = ) ~ > 2% ‘I_ was still a schoolboy when I had the first impressions of his work. The problem of Tonio Kréger primarily determined the main themes df youthful works.’ What, then, is the problem of Tonio Kréger? He is the ‘isolated bourgeois’, whose problem is the impossibility of reconciling art with bourgeois life, whilst at the same time wanting both that life and art itself. Mann throughout his life, with great artistic force, expressed the fundamental dilemma of the bourgeoisie in the period of its decline. Not of a bourgeoisie in general, but precisely one which had failed in its revolution, and was no longer capable of fighting absolutism. Mann, from his book Buddenbrooks (1900) through Tonio Kréger and Royal Highness, to The Magic Mountain describes, analyses and interprets the decadence of the bourgeoisie. In a masterly manner, his novels express the anguish of the bourgeoisie. He bases himself on sympathy for that class sliding down the slope of history. He turns to the past with a certain nostalgia, to a time when the bourgeoisie was strong and full of life. In his works the proletariat is completely absent, non-existent, And since the writer main- tains the incompatibility of reconciling (bourgeois) life with art and is unable to see the working Class, he is deeply pessimistic. From this pessimism are sometimes born attempts to regenerate the bourgeoisie. ' Here we grasp the meaning of that ‘internal analysis of Mann’s writings, which occupied me throughout my life’, of which Lukacs speaks. His interest in literature and particularly drama grew. He personally felt the attraction and tension of contradictions, their tragedy expressed in drama and also in the works of Thomas Mann. The basis of these contradictions, reflected in contemporary literature, is that ultimately there is no longer any place in life for Life. In terminology familiar to the period, the bourgeois intelligentsia expressed the impossibility of realizing a human life in the 81

[p041] Influenced first class organization in 1868 conditions of bourgeois life, but also the impos- sibility of transcending them. Lukacs, as a student, became one of the organizers in Budapest of a ‘free Theatre’, the famous ‘Thalia’ where with his friends he staged Ibsen and Strindberg. This choice of Ibsen is equally revealing. But theatrical activity was only an intermediary. He was already writing reviews for a journal, and then began to study philosophy. It must be stressed, as he does himself, that with this turn foreign influences, particularly German,- increased —especially that of Kant. At university he was still studying Marx’s work. He read Capital, The 18th Brumaire and Engels’ Origin of the Family. His first ‘Marxism’ he characterizes as follows: ‘This study immediately convinced me of the correctness of some of the main points of Marxism. In the first place the theory of surplus value, the conception of history as that of class struggles, and the division of society into classes influenced me. However, as is usually the case with bourgeois intellectuals this influence was limited to economics and above all to “sociology”. I held that the materialist philosophy, in which I made no dis- tinction between materialism and _ dialectical materialism, must be transcended from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. The neo-Kantian theory of “the immanence of consciousness” was in perfect harmony with my class situation, my world outlook at that time.’ (My Path to Marxism op. cit.) The imprint of this starting point It is now possible to summarize and charac- terize Lukacs’ starting-point. If our examination of the milieu and awakening of his consciousness seems to the reader lengthy, and perhaps super- fluous, it is nonetheless essential. This is because certain profound characteristics of Lukacs’ 82 Frankel Hungarian Communard founded first workers’ party starting-point will mark him throughout his sub- sequent itinerary. What is particularly striking is that his awaken- ing and then his evolution and researches were purely intellectual. He came to study Marx and, later, even to know his works only through study and reflection. He revolted against his milieu, and sought the answer not in struggle but in reading and reflection, trying thus to find both the explanation and the solution for his position and that of society. In his attitude there was not even a break between theory and practice, but a pure and simple non-existence of the latter. However, the essence of his reflections is outstandingly rich in social content. His autobiographical comment, in which he explains that through his immediate milieu, he broke with the whole of Hungarian society, is revealing. Written almost 70 years later, he does not even see to what extent he ‘forgets’— in his youth and still today—that this ‘Hungarian society’ was itself made up of classes. It was in vain that ‘the conception of history as a history of class struggles, and the division of society into classes’, influenced him. For him, it is only theory without practical application. There is nothing surprising in the fact that even at the time these autobiographical notes were published, the Lukacs of today does not notice that this conception is not that of Marx, and has nothing Marxist in i. Marx and Engels clearly explained that they borrowed it from the historians of the French Revolution: Thierry, Michelet and Guizot. This conception appears at the summit of bourgeois 19th century thought. Marxism goes radically further: it teaches the historical mission of the proletariat in this class struggle, a mission written into the laws and nature of capitalist society. This intellectual stance of Lukacs, including his reading of Marx, has no justification. The working class was not absent from the Hungary of those days. Its formation as a class begins from the crushing of the 1848-1849 revolution. With the Fourth International Winter 1971/72

[p042] Influenced first class organization in 1868 conditions of bourgeois life, but also the impos- sibility of transcending them. Lukacs, as a student, became one of the organizers in Budapest of a ‘free Theatre’, the famous ‘Thalia’ where with his friends he staged Ibsen and Strindberg. This choice of Ibsen is equally revealing. But theatrical activity was only an intermediary. He was already writing reviews for a journal, and then began to study philosophy. It must be stressed, as he does himself, that with this turn foreign influences, particularly German,- increased —especially that of Kant. At university he was still studying Marx’s work. He read Capital, The 18th Brumaire and Engels’ Origin of the Family. His first ‘Marxism’ he characterizes as follows: — ‘This study immediately convinced me of the correctness of some of the main points of Marxism. In the first place the theory of surplus value, the conception of history as that of class struggles, and the division of society into classes influenced me. However, as is usually the case with bourgeois intellectuals this influence was limited to economics and above all to “sociology”. I held that the materialist philosophy, in which I made no dis- tinction between materialism and_ dialectical materialism, must be transcended from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. The neo-Kantian theory of “the immanence of consciousness” was in perfect harmony with my class situation, my world outlook at that time.’ (My Path to Marxism op. cit.) The imprint of this starting point It is now possible to summarize and charac- terize Lukacs’ starting-point. If our examination of the milieu and awakening of his consciousness seems to the reader lengthy, and perhaps super- fluous, it is nonetheless essential. This is because certain profound characteristics of Lukacs’ 82 Frankel Hungarian Communard founded first workers’ party starting-point will mark him throughout his sub- sequent itinerary. What is particularly striking is that his awaken- ing and then his evolution and researches were purely intellectual. He came to study Marx and, later, even to know his works only through study and reflection. He revolted against his milieu, and sought the answer not in struggle but in reading and reflection, trying thus to find both the explanation and the solution for his position and that of society. In his attitude there was not even a break between theory and practice, but a pure and simple non-existence of the latter. However, the essence of his reflections is outstandingly rich in social content. His autobiographical comment, in which he explains that through his immediate milieu, he broke with the whole of Hungarian society, is revealing. Written almost 70 years later, he does not even see to what extent he ‘forgets’— in his youth and still today—that this ‘Hungarian society’ was itself made up of classes. It was in vain that ‘the conception of history as a history of class struggles, and the division of society into classes’, influenced him. For him, it is only theory without practical application. There is nothing surprising in the fact that even at the time these autobiographical notes were published, the Lukacs of today does not notice that this conception is not that of Marx, and has nothing Marxist in it. Marx and Engels clearly explained that they borrowed it from the historians of the French Revolution: Thierry, Michelet and Guizot. This conception appears at the summit of bourgeois 19th century thought. Marxism goes radically further: it teaches the historical mission of the proletariat in this class struggle, a mission written into the laws and nature of capitalist society. This intellectual stance of Lukacs, including his reading of Marx, has no justification. The working class was not absent from the Hungary of those days. Its formation as a class begins from the crushing of the 1848-1849 revolution. With the Fourth International Winter 1971/72

[p043] formation of the trade unions, it fought for decades, in a struggle rich in lessons, to tear itself from the liberal bourgeoisie and form its own political party. It was in 1868 that the first political class organization was formed, under the heavy influence of Lassalle’s ideas. After its destruction by the police, the Marxist, Leo Frankel, one of the leaders of the Paris Commune, returned to his country of birth and founded the first really socialist Hungarian workers’ party. Movements of the working class in the towns merged with great peasant revolts. Under the pressure of the bour- geoisie and the state, Frankel again being in emigration, this new party succumbed to oppor- tunism. But in 1890 the Social Democratic Party was formed. Powerful strikes and demonstrations in the towns and the countryside, shook the regime. Lukacs had the chance to see that the class struggle is not a theory, but a reality that theory only grasps and fertilizes. Of course, the awakening of the consciousness of intellectuals often proceeds by reflection and not by the daily experience of class struggle. It is not a question of reproaching the young Lukacs with this characteristic of development. But whether beginning from day-to-day experiences or through reflection, once they have arrived at Marxism the worker and the intellectual are merged in this common struggle in which theory and practice fuse in a constant interaction. What is to be noted with Lukacs is that this intellectual imprint of his starting-point remains present throughout his life, marked by a split between theory and practice. His approach to the labour movement in the course of the First World War is characterized by discussions in different groups and lectures but at no time does he participate in a trade-union or political movement of the working class. It is remarkable that in all his autobiographies written from 1933 to 1969 (we know of at least three) he explains in minute detail, although sometimes with Political Itinerary of Georg Lukacs some omissions and discrepancies, his intellectual movement towards Marxism, but never explains how he approached the labour movement. And even when he states that, on the eve of the war and during the first years of the war, anarcho- syndicalist and Sorelian ideas influenced him, he just does not think of explaining whether or not he did something in practice for these ideas. This complete break between theory and practice was later ‘softened’. But its foundation remained. Thus, later, as a member or leader of the Communist Party, he sees this party in itself, completely detached from the labour movement as a whole. The living dialectic between, on the one hand, the labour movement and class Struggle, and on the Other the Party, the vanguard, escapes him completely. The dialectical unity between the Party as an emanation of the class and its struggles and as a leader of that class will never be grasped by Lukacs. For him, the Party leads, it is something finished, perfect, because Marxism conceived asa totality of finished categories guides it. This is precisely the realization of the Spirit in History of which Hegel speaks. And one of the reasons, if not the most important one, for this idealism is the separation of theory and practice. When he joined the Communist Party, he did not only see it as a party in itself, detached from the labour movement, but rather as a sort of life- buoy for culture through the building of socialism. This statement is in no way a reproach to Lukacs. It only shows that for him, even when practice appears close to theory, there is no organic link between them. In fact, for a Marxist, the party of the class leads the emancipation of the proletariat and by that, permits the salvation of all humanity, culture included. Consequently, the theoretical pre- occupations of a Marxist are intimately linked to that struggle (practice) and not to the problems of culture. There was only one period in Lukacs’ life, from 1919 to 1930, when theory and practice 83

[p044] CLA LIL te. wee a Kant an early infiuence Simmel tended to fuse (for the moment, we will leave aside the political content of this fusion). This was the time when he was one of the leaders of the Hungarian Communist Party. Later, he again becomes the ‘saviour of culture’, usually indepen- dently of the class nature of society. The fact that with Lukacs, even Marxism be- comes a sort of system with fixed categories, found particularly in his ‘Aesthetics’, clearly shows the break between theory and practice. The Hegelian- ism for which he has been correctly reproached finds its origin there. A particularly eloquent example of the relation between Lukacs’ theory and practice is his par- ticipation in the struggle of the opposition before the Hungarian revolution of workers’ councils. In June 1956, the Petéfi Circle organized a public debate on the theme, ‘Present problems of Marxist Philosophy’. One of the noteworthy participants was Lukacs, whose contribution constituted the centre of the debate. But instead of analysing, with the weapon of dialectical materialism, the funda- mental problems of a struggle which was to sweep the entire country, he only spoke of the situation of Marxism in Hungary, taken as a science apart. And even from this standpoint, he made not the slightest effort to show the irreconcilable opposi- tion between Marxism and Stalinism, for the simple reason that he did not want to see it him- self. In his contribution, as in several of his writings, Stalinism in this respect consisted only of a dogmatism, with no other content, stifling the living method of Marxism. He never poses the main problem, even if here and there he touches on it, of whether Stalinism falsified, deformed and perverted that method itself, dialectical material- ism. And since he does not pose it, he tries even less to reply to it in an overall and positive manner. Thus, in the Petdfi Circle debate, the axis of his contribution was the necessity to develop Marxism in the form of applying it to particular sciences. 84 ‘Philosophy of Life Schoo!’ Dilthey For ‘today, there is no Marxist logic, no Marxist aesthetics or Marxist ethics, Marxist pedagogy or Marxist psychology, and so on’. So Marxism becomes a sort of philosophy to be applied to the various sciences. Its development thus becomes an intellectual task realized only by intellectuals in their studies. And since, in this way, his ‘Marxism’ loses its raison d’etre, as a science of the proletarian class struggle, guiding that practice and gathering sustenance from it, it ceases to be Marxism. It quite naturally gives way to the idealist Utopia of wanting to create, from prefabricated elements, a ‘Marxist’ pedagogy, ethics, etc. Marx and Engels finished with philo- sophy as such. Lukacs recreates it. And the key to its resurrection is the separation of theory and practice, whereas its liquidation by Marx, sum- marized in the Theses on Feuerbach, on the con- trary, united them. It follows that this rupture, if it distorts theory, is also a danger for the practice. The latter becomes crippled. Deprived of a theoretical support and sustenance which are firmly linked to practice, it is characterized in Lukacs by accommodation, some- times reticent sometimes not, to all situations. He was criticized by Lenin in 1920 and he rapidly made a self-criticism. Then in 1923-1924, the Communist International criticized his book His- tory and Class Consciousness; just as quickly, a self-criticism. In 1929-1930 another criticism, and another self-criticism by Lukacs, then more criti- cisms, but Lukacs always knows ,jhow to withdraw, never hesitating to sacrifice his companions. Let us not forget that he is one of the few survivors! In 1956 he follows the revolution and joins Imre Nagy’s government; he is one of the seven leaders founding the new Communist Party during the revolution. But later all the leaders of the revolu- tion are executed or imprisoned, including the founders of the new party, except Kadar—and Lukacs. For Lukacs a theoretical position is only a theory with no link with the struggle, and can Fourth International Winter 1971/72

[p045] Lit 21t tthA Kant an early influence > “2 tL fe tended to fuse (for the moment, we will leave aside the political content of this fusion). This was the time when he was one of the leaders of the Hungarian Communist Party. Later, he again becomes the ‘saviour of culture’, usually indepen- dently of the class nature of society. The fact that with Lukacs, even Marxism be- comes a sort of system with fixed categories, found particularly in his ‘Aesthetics’, clearly shows the break between theory and practice. The Hegelian- ism for which he has been correctly reproached finds its origin there. A particularly eloquent example of the relation between Lukacs’ theory and practice is his par- ticipation in the struggle of the opposition before the Hungarian revolution of workers’ councils. In June 1956, the Petéfi Circle organized a public debate on the theme, ‘Present problems of Marxist Philosophy’. One of the noteworthy participants was Lukacs, whose contribution constituted the centre of the debate. But instead of analysing, with the weapon of dialectical materialism, the funda- mental problems of a struggle which was to sweep the entire country, he only spoke of the situation of Marxism in Hungary, taken as a science apart. And even from this standpoint, he made not the slightest effort to show the irreconcilable opposi- tion between Marxism and Stalinism, for the simple reason that he did not want to see it him- self. In his contribution, as in several of his writings, Stalinism in this respect consisted only of a dogmatism, with no other content, stifling the living method of Marxism. He never poses the main problem, even if here and there he touches on it, of whether Stalinism falsified, deformed and perverted that method itself, dialectical material- ism. And since he does not pose it, he tries even less to reply to it in an overall and positive manner. Thus, in the Petdfi Circle debate, the axis of his contribution was the necessity to develop Marxism in the form of applying it to particular sciences. 84 For ‘today, there is no Marxist logic, no Marxist aesthetics or Marxist ethics, Marxist pedagogy or Marxist psychology, and so on’. So Marxism becomes a sort of philosophy to be applied to the various sciences. Its development thus becomes an intellectual task realized only by intellectuals in their studies. And since, in this way, his ‘Marxism’ loses its raison d’etre, as a science of the proletarian class struggle, guiding that practice and gathering sustenance from it, it ceases to be Marxism. It quite naturally gives way to the idealist Utopia of wanting to create, from prefabricated elements, a ‘Marxist’ pedagogy, ethics, etc. Marx and Engels finished with philo- sophy as such. Lukacs recreates it. And the key to its resurrection is the separation of theory and practice, whereas its liquidation by Marx, sum- marized in the Theses on Feuerbach, on the con- trary, united them. It follows that this rupture, if it distorts theory, is also a danger for the practice. The latter becomes crippled. Deprived of a theoretical support and sustenance which are firmly linked to practice, it is characterized in Lukacs by accommodation, some- times reticent sometimes not, to all situations. He was criticized by Lenin in 1920 and he rapidly made a self-criticism. Then in 1923-1924, the Communist International criticized his book His- tory and Class Consciousness; just as quickly, a self-criticism. In 1929-1930 another criticism, and another self-criticism by Lukacs, then more criti- cisms, but Lukacs always knows ,jhow to withdraw, never hesitating to sacrifice his companions. Let us not forget that he is one of the few survivors! In 1956 he follows the revolution and joins Imre Nagy’s government; he is one of the seven leaders founding the new Communist Party during the revolution. But later all the leaders of the revolu- tion are executed or imprisoned, including the founders of the new party, except Kadar—and Lukacs. For Lukacs a theoretical position is only a theory with no link with the struggle, and can Fourth International Winter 1971/72

[p046] At Heidelberg... Professors Windelband and Rickert therefore be easily modified or abandoned. What is important is to survive, and always be on the winning side. Lukacs is always in the camp of the exterminating bureaucracy, even if previously he was to be found in the camp of the ‘oppositionists’. Another profound characteristic of his youth accompanies Lukacs up to the present. It is closely linked to the first. This is his attitude to the fundamental antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie. Coming out against his environment, he did not turn to the proletariat, but, as we have seen, to- wards lectures and intellectual research. More exactly, as he expresses it, to ‘international modernism’ against ‘conservative Hungarianism’. This ‘modernism’ ig contemporary literature, expressed particularly in the work of Thomas Mann and in German neo-Kantian philosophy. In order to define Lukacs’ relationship to the bour- geois-proletarian antagonism, an examination, even a rapid one, of the class content of this philo- sophy and literature is necessary. Engels summarily characterized the German university philosophers of the second half of the 19th century as philistines, as ‘posthumous abor- tions of German classical philosophy’. The essence of neo-Kantian philosophy lay in purging Kant of his materialist inconsistencies by rejecting materialism. Basically, the various neo-Kantian schools in Germany represented a theoretical front of the bourgeoisie against the dialectical material- ism of the proletariat. The ‘Baden School’ of neo- Kantians, with the Heidelberg professors Windei- band and Rickert, sought to transcend Kant by rejecting the Kantian recognition of the materialist Ding an sich (Thing in itself}. This school busied itself above all with intellectual and cultural values. The other school, that of Marburg, tried to reconcile Kant’s critique with modern logic and to apply his ethics to social problems. This philosophy expressed the situation and specific interests of the bourgeoisie at a well- Political Itinerary of Georg Lukacs ‘Baden School’ of Neo Kantians—a theoretical counterbalance to the theory of Permanent Revolution defined period of its evolution. Just as the latter, faced with a proletariat strengthening its struggle and organizations, was sheltering in the arms of absolutism whilst debating against it, so neo- Kantian philosophy was the theoretical attempt to translate and so support this ‘equilibrium’. But the latter never existed in social reality; the bour- geoisie had become once and for all counter- revolutionary, despite its intentions with regard to absolutism. The realization of the tasks of the bourgeois revolution, such as the dissolution of the powerful feudal remnants and the application of democratic rights, henceforth required a pro- letarian revolution. This was the meaning of the permanent revolution advanced by Marx and Engels as the principal conclusion of the 1848- 1849 revolution. The Russian Revolution of 1905 verified it in practice, with much more force now that the working class and its organizations were developing against the now reactionary bour- geoisie. All of this development was analysed and expressed in Leon Trotsky’s major contribution to Marxism, the theory of permanent revolution elaborated on the morrow of the Russian Revolu- tion of 1905. In these conditions, neo-Kantian philosophy could not be a ‘balance’, non-existent in reality, between materialism and idealism, but—just like the bourgeoisie on the social and political plane—it was reactionary. It went back, not only in relation to Hegel, not to speak of Marx and Engels, but even in relation to Kant himself. Neo-Kantian philosophy constituted the theoretical weapon of the bourgeoisie to fight dialecticai materialism, in the form of a ‘balance’ between materialism and idealism. It insinuated itself as a ‘noble’ attempt to rid materialism of its rigidity. It found its form of penetration into the labour movement. with Duhring. Engels’ theoretical struggle against this attempt was thus the necessary condition of the reinforcement of the conscious proletariat for its historical role, as an independent class. But since 85

[p047] the principal social conditions remained the same, the theoretical front of the bourgeoisie, namely the different forms of neo-Kantianism, continued to flourish. They undermined the labour movement. The appearance of Bernstein’s revisionism, immedi- ately after Engels’ death, and its influence must not be separated from the fact that the leaders of German social democracy did not understand Engels’ warning on the necessity of theoretical struggle. One of the most dangerous forms of neo- Kantianism then represented was Machism, against which Lenin took up the struggle and thereby won a decisive battle against neo-Kantiaii:sm. Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-Criticis:n, written in 1908, aimed at the defence of material- ism by developing it, was Lenin’s renvly, fighting for the proletarian revolution, to the attempts of the bourgeoisie to theoretically disarm it by an attempt at ‘reconciliation’ of materialism with idealism. In the same way, the theory of permanent revolution elaborated by Trotsky in 1906 constituted the arming of the proletariatc against efforts to sub- ordinate it to the bourgeoisie. Between these two theoretical works thére is an intimate link; they arm the working class against the desperate attempts of the bourgeoisie to confuse the perspec- tives, aim and content of its struggle. Without this theoretical preparation and struggle, the October Revolution is inconceivable. So the social significance of neo-Kantianism rested on this, that it assigned a progressive role to the bourgeoisie. As such, this philosophy was violently opposed to the independence of the pro- letariat, it constituted the theoretical counter- balance to the theory of permanent revolution. This sociological application of neo-Kantianism, with ‘borrowings’ from Marx, was also taken un by contemporary academics, particularly Max Weber and Werner Sombart. The ‘philosophical’ transition to this sociology was assured by the ‘Philosophy of life’ school of Dilthey and Simmel. 86 Lukacs was 21 in 1906, when he arrived in Berlin to complete his studies, following the course of the ageing Dilthey and Simmel. The latter deeply influenced him, so much so that in October 1918, on Simmel’s death, Lukacs devoted a eulogy to him. In 1913 he left Berlin for Heidel- berg University because of the attraction the neo- Kantian ‘Baden School’ had for him. He explains his choice of Heidelberg in one of his auto- biographical notes. ‘I had always had reservations regarding extreme subjective idealism (the Marburg school of neo- Kantianism as much as Machism). . . . However, this fact did not lead me to materialist conclusions, but on the contrary to approach the philosophical schools which wanted to resolve this problem in an irrational-relativist manner, sometimes making the latter sparkle in mysticism.’ At Heidelberg, or the university near Friburg, he finds a whole team whose names were, or were to be, known as philosophical or sociological! representatives of a ‘transcendence’ of Marx. Max Weber was professor at Heidelberg until 1903 and his influence had continued to grow. In fact Lukacs himself was to write later: ‘Max Weber’s writings on Protestantism were my models for a ‘sociology of literature’ in which elements taken from Marx, necessarily diluted and paled, although still present were scarcely re- cognizable.’ At Heidelberg he found professors Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, ‘those posthumous abortions’, along with Emil Lask and Paul Ernst, whose preoccupations, if not the same type, always remain recognizable in Lukacs. As companions there he finds Ernst Bloch, of his own age, Karl Jaspers, then Karl Korsch and Karl Mannheim, whilst Martin Heidegger was at Friburg, where Edmund Husserl was a professor. Quite u pre gramme—Lukacs was then no longer a youthful beginner. From the age of 21 to 30 he basks in the university milieu of Berlin and Heidelberp Fourth International Winter 1971/72 es ge, “oP Sasa! lier, we. cae gt op

[p048] university milieu was the base and support of the social study circles founded and organized by Werner Sombart. This Breslau (now Wroclaw) professor undertook to elaborate social reforms ‘in favour of the workers’. He was the pale university reflection of Schultze-Delitzsch, whose aim was to make workers believe that it is pos- sible to reconcile their struggle for emancipation with the maintenance of the social order. The proliferation of this kind of professor is characteristic in Russia, Germany and the Austro- Hungarian monarchy of the time, which all had fundamentally the same social and political con- ditions. But whereas in Russia a theoretical and consequently political struggle was waged by Lenin and Trotsky, by the Bolsheviks, against the ‘legal Marxists’ Struve, Tugan-Baranovski etc., in the other countries, because of theoretical negligence and the consequent opportunism ram- pant in the labour movement, the influence of conciliatory ‘theories’ and their practical corollary —namely the attack on the independence of the proletariat, seeking to subordinate it to the bourgeoisie—was considerable: For a long time this characteristic was to leave its traces on the gubsequent development of the labour movement in those countries. On the plane of philosophy and theory a huge battle was to take place, the price for which was to be the consciousness, and therefore the class independence, of the proletariat. Attempts to cloud the consciousness of the pro- letariat were to be concentrated in Germany where the working class was strongest: its actions conditioned the victory of the European revolu- tion. It was not accidental that later, the Bol- shevik leadership of the Russian Revolution looked precisely towards the German proletariat and its revolution as the guarantee of the world revolution and consequently the victory of socialism. Theoretically, the permanent revolution linking the class conditions of revolutionary but backward Russia to the revolution in the industrial Political Itinerary of Georg Lukacs Right and above: Heidelberg companions, Jaspers and Korsch countries was in fact stressing the capital role .of the German proletariat. Thus, the role of the German working class against its bourgeoisie was one of the important elements of the permanent revolution. Inversely, one could say without exaggeration that the relationship to the German proletariat and its role determined the relation- ship to the permanent revolution. In fact, to this theory were opposed only ideologies of the progressive role of the bourgeoisie and the sub- ordination of the German working class, just as all variants of such an ideology remain enemies of the permanent revolution; as much then as later, right through to the present. Breaking from his milieu, and a complete foreigner to the workers, Lukacs turned towards ‘international modernism’, particularly German. Granted it expressed a struggle on all planes against the backward state of feudal absolutism, but in order to ensure the expansion of the bourgeoisie. So if, then, such a hope seemed futile to Lukacs in Hungary because of the weak- ness of the bourgeoisie and its consequent more craven submission, in Germany all intellectual life aspired to such a possibility, despite some pes- simistic notes. So, breaking from a backward and _ deformed capitalism, Lukacs turned to a classical, so-to-speak ‘pure’ capitalism. His attachment to the problems of contemporary literature in general and to classical literature was conditioned by this starting point. Throughout his subsequent evolution he was marked by it theoretically and politically. We shall see that throughout his life he was to remain a vicious and declared enemy of per- manent revolution. This is why it was quite natural for him to repudiate his ‘revolutionary’ attitude at the time of the revolutions of 1917 to 1923. In 1969 he wrote these significant Jinés: ‘Like most people who were drawn into the revolutionary movement by the events of 1917, I too was convinced that soon, by the revolutionary road, socialism would replace European capitalism, This 87

[p049] sectarian fanaticism had not yet known the bureau- cratic restrictions of the later stages of development . . . fit] was a Messianic sectarianism which be- lieved, despite all defeats and reversals, in the rapid and radical rebirth of the world. It was this kind of assimilation to Marxism in its early stages that dominated for some years my position on inter- national development.’ [Our emphasis.] Revolutionary politics is completely repudiated by Lukacs, who identifies it with sectarianism and fanaticism. But if the European revolution is only fanatical Messianism, the only possible path is ‘socialism in one country’. Effectively, this is Lukacs’ funda- mental position. His repudiation of revolution dates from 1924. Lenin died in January 1924. In the following month, Lukacs devoted a book to him, in which—although on the whole in an ambiguous form—appeared the first elements of ‘socialism in one country’. Stalin himself only arrived at this position in the autumn of the same year. But Lukacs is modest; he was never to admit that, in some way, he anticipated Stalin. In 1967, writing a long preface to the second volume of his works published by Luchterhand Verlag, he wrote: ‘After 1924 the Third International correctly defined the position of the capitalist world as one of “relative stability’. These facts meant that I had to re-think my theoretical position. In the debates in the Russian Party I agreed with Stalin about the necessity for socialism in one country and _ this shows very clearly the start of a new epoch in my thought.’ It could not be clearer. In this article we shall have occasion to demon- strate this hostility to the permanent revolution, and thus to revolution along with his hatred for Trotsky and loyalty to ‘socialism in one country’. For this reason, he was, throughout his life, not an anti-Stalinist, as many would have us believe, but on the contrary the ideologue of the Stalinist bureaucracy who just made the mistake of going forward ‘too quickly’ for the bureaucracy, of opening up the road which it was to travel before the ‘modern’ variant of its counter-revolutionary policy had been found. We must, however, raise something which was to deeply mark the begin- ning of this development—his hostility to the German proletariat, a hostility which, linked with that towards the permanent revolution, is also one of the characteristics of Stalinism. In his youth Lukacs was a neo-Kantian, nostalgic for the ‘grandeur’ of the bourgeoisie. Thomas Mann’s problem is his too. There is nothing sur- prising in the fact that for Lukacs, Mann is not only the greatest writer, but also—as he was to say in 1955—“‘a profound judge of the social and cultural processes of his time, “a man of great” political clairvoyance’. But in fact, Mann was, and remained so until his death, a bourgeois who despised the working class. In 1914, Mann basic- ally supported the war of German imperialism, hoping that through it would come the regeneration of the bourgeoisie. This ‘profound judge of social processes’ later wrote on the question of socialism (in his study on Goethe and Tolstoy): ‘Its intellectual life was cramped for too long in an inferior materialism,’ and for that reason ‘its national task [is to] read Hélderlin to Karl Marx.’ He too, wanted to rid Marxism of its ‘rigidity’ by proposing nothing les. than the mystical romanticism of Holderlin. If Lukacs, in his works on aesthetics, gives primacy to those writers who bring out in their works the ‘totality’ of society and considers Mann as the greatest writer, although the working class is completely absent from his work, that is his business as a literary critic. But if he places Mann the politician on such a high plane it shows that he himself shares the same basic stand, and literary criticism reveals here only too clearly the political position. It is in relation to fascism that this bourgeois, © anti-working class position came out. Here again Lukacs adopts exactly the same opinion as Stalin: a profound contempt not only for the proletariat but for the whole of the German people—and a policy seeking to re-establish the domination of the German bourgeoisie in its ‘democratic’ form. Again he agrees with Mann. This contempt for the German proletariat goes as far as slander. In 1942 he wrote: ‘The German people, confused by demagogy, pushed forward with the whip of terror, a play- thing of its animal instincts, lurched on to its death.’ {Our emphasis.] Like Stalin, he does not hesitate to slander the German working class here, without uttering a word about the destruction of the German labour movement as the aim of and reason for the fascist government. For him it represented ‘dark forces come to power’, and not the most aggressive form of bourgeois power. For—according to Lukacs, just as Heinrich Mann’s ‘subject’—he sees ‘in the German petty bourgeoisie the first traits which will later lead to fascism .. . the disarray of all moral instincts . . . because of the lack of free- dom, insufficiency of democracy, the degradation of civil life’. Fascism, writes Lukacs, is: . the result of historical and political, spiritual and moral tendencies and counter-tendencies, which have fought for decades; it is the sudden manifestation, in the form of crisis, of the ideolo- gical poisoning, prepared slowly and over a long period, of the German people, a poison against which it fought for a long time, but too slowly and with too little vigour . . . real anti-fascism is thus a struggle ... against the dark forces .. .’. So fascism is not a government of the bour- geoisie, but of ‘dark forces’ against which ‘real’ bourgeois democracy must be re-established, for, Lukacs stated in 1944, ‘German history is poor in revolutionary events, and even openly pro- gressive events’. The slanderer knows no limits! Whilst the working class is going through one of the most difficult moments of its history, Lukacs (to give himself confidence, perhaps) can do nothing but slander it. An attitude radically opposed to Engels’, who on the morrow of the crushing of the German revolution of 1848-1849 the German workers to take confidence again.” It was this attitude which led him to write on the German Peasant Wars. Fourth International Winter 1971/72

[p050] The short preface to Engels’ book begins with these words: ‘The German people too has its own revolutionary tradition.’ Then he writes, ‘Faced with a temporary relaxation . . . it is time to set out before the German people the indomitable but hard, vigorous figures of the great Peasant War.’ Lukacs, precisely the opposite of Engels, slanders the working class and the entire German people. He has been led to this position by his hostility to the permanent revolution, his con- tinued attachment to the imprints of bourgeois ideology received at the beginning of his path. From this attitude derives his idealist apprecia- tion of fascism. In his book The Destruction of Reason, written in 1952, he tries to prove that fascism in Germany was in some manner con- tained in all the previous evolution of German culture and, as such, is an ideological poisoning. It is quite natural that Lukacs always supported Stalin’s German policies, up to and including the shameful division of Germany into two. He is still, even today, the defender of this division. The way in which he formed his ideas and the manner of their development during his youth left profound traces on Lukacs’ theoretical and political positions. The separation of theory and practice, along with his negative relationship to the working class and its role will constitute the background to all his theoretical work and every political position. But they do not exhaust the whole of his itinerary. His approach to the labour movement and entry into the Communist Party From his autobiographical notes, it is impossible to determine the phases of his approach to the labour movement, nor even the date when his interest for this movement was first awakened. Fixed in his neo-Kantian position and under the influence of the ‘Philosophy of Life’, then one of its forms, Lukacs for a long time adopted an ethical, moralist position in relation to social problems. This position, before and during the imperialist First World War, brought him to anarchism, particularly in its Sorelian form. Anarchism, the essence of which is petty-bourgeois revolt within the framework of bourgeois society, suited him down to the ground. All the more, since it allowed him not to associate himself to any movement, not even anarchist. In fact, although during the war he took part in debates in a group in Hungary which comprised different tendencies, he belonged to none of them. He remained an outsider with his ethical and mural revolt, the aim of which was ‘an internal transfor- mation of man’. Yet in 1969, he sets up as a virtue the fact that ‘I was never able to reconcile myself to the social-democratic theory of those days. especially Kautsky, whereas basically he rejected the entire Jabour movement, now justify- ing himself by the opportunism of Social Democracy. Political Itinerary of Georg Lukacs But this self-justification is also false in itself. First because until 1914, the Social Democratic party was a party comprising all the political forces of the working class, the sole framework in which Lenin, Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg fought for the proletarian revolution. Lukacs’ rejection meant not only the abandonment of this struggle and the renunciation of a political party of the proletariat, but also stresses Lukacs’ incomprehension of the problem today. He is much more sincere when he writes that, during the war, ‘I was not a socialist and could only admire Liebknecht from afar, from outside...’ But this rejection of Kautsky is not sincere, for in reality, by ridding himself of his ‘Messianic fanaticism’ for the revolution, Lukacs finds him- self again, namely a Menshevik conciliator and defender of the bourgeois order, no less tenacious than Kautsky. From his autobiographies, it is impossible to _ establish if the influence of the ultra-leftists in the labour movement affected Lukacs during the war or if it only came afterwards. It is said that during the war, he was also under the influence of the Dutch ultra-lefts, through Roland-Holst. In any event, this would not be surprising, but rather in the order of things. It is known that he knew certain of Rosa Luxemburg’s writings, which the clearly admired, and some of the German Spartacus League’s. What characterizes Lukacs’ political position at this time is an eclecticism of different tendencies which he tries to reconcile on the basis of Kantian ethics. The October Revolution made such an attitude impossible, or rather hostile. In fact, in March 1918, in a debate in Budapest of ‘progressive’ intellectuals, Lukacs was the main inspirer of the opinion defending an ‘ethical idealism’, as against materialism, for the rebirth of the world. But there is worse, In November of the same year, the Budapest liberal intellectuals’ review Free Thought published a special edition entitled ‘Bolshevism’ on the occasion of the first anniversary of the October revolution. In this edition, Lukacs took a position against the October Revolution! " revelation is for ‘left’ and even communist intel- lectuals, who are admirers of Lukacs, ‘ Marxist of our period’. Lukacs was always tactful enough not to mention this ‘unfortunate’ position against the October Revolution anywhere. We do not have that ‘tact’, and therefore quote through oppression? Can a new order of the world be created if the means of its creation are only technically distinguishable from those . . . of the old order? . . . Bolshevism is based on the meta- physical supposition that good can come from evil, that it is possible... to get to truth by way of lies. The author of these lines cannot share this belief.’ Then, a few days later, ‘the author of these lines’, Lukacs, joined the Communist Party of Hungary. And from this membership of ‘evil’, his entire political itinerary will be marked by the

[p051] ‘lie’, an intellectual dishonesty that he believes to be ‘Bolshevik’, but which makes of him one of the most eminent Stalinist gravediggers of Bol- shevism. The man who quoted this article in a Hungarian review (Volsag, No 10, 1968) is right to add that this change, surprising to say the least, is moti- vated in Lukacs by the acceptance of ‘evil’ to arrive, in a fanatical manner, at revolutionary activity. The key to this is given by Lukacs him- self in Tactics and Ethics written in 1919 where he quotes Judith, heroine of Hebbel’s drama, ‘If God placed crime between me and _ that destined for me, who am I to dispense with it?’ Behind this Messianism, cost what it may, it is easy to recognize the ‘categorical imperative’ of old Kant. But what is more important, is that when Lukacs joined the Communist Party, he did so Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Nagy 90 (left), Kadar (right) understanding nothing of Bolshevism, nor of the revolution which he rejected, nor of the Party, nor of the labour movement. He ‘heroically’ accepts revolution as a necessary evil, and against his innermost conviction. It follows logically, and the facts prove it, that after ridding himself of that fanatical and Messianic attitude in 1926, he could only come back to himself, to his position well established previously. And that means that if Lukacs condemned the October Revolution in 1918, he will condemn all revolu- tions after 1924, just as he was the enemy of revolution previously. His political itinerary is clearly expressed: his anti-revolutionary attitude is an organic constant of his political life—except for his short period of ‘revolutionary fanaticism’ —through to the present. In the second part of this article we shall analyse the forms and manifestations of this itinerary. Fourth International Winter 1971/72