Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The End of Western Marxism? On the Unravelling of an Ideological Structure

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study examines the proposition that the ideological structure of “Western Marxism” began to unravel after 1989 and the end of the Cold War, and that it is now largely falling apart. The argument proceeds in three steps, the first of which is an overview of Western Marxism’s ideological structure. The second step analyses a number of deeply critical assessments of Western Marxism from within the contexts of the few countries of the world that make up the “West.” The fact that these critical and often polemical studies are appearing indicates the breakdown of Western Marxism’s former hegemony. The third step deals with more constructive material, including the Western “recovery” of Engels, and especially the dialectics of nature, as well as the impact of the major achievements in the theory and practice of Marxism from developing countries, in the context of socialism in power.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The following section summarizes the argument of an earlier article (Boer 2023).

  2. We do find the term “Western Marxism” used by Karl Korsch in an essay from 1930, but his usage is strictly geographical: Marxism in Western Europe in relation to “Russian Marxism” (Korsch [1930] 2008). With the geographical location came political differences, especially in light of the criticisms of the Bolsheviks by Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg, among others, and the sharp reposte already by Lenin ([1918] 1965).

  3. Since the readership of this article may include Chinese scholars, the citations include English and Chinese versions of the text where needed.

  4. As with so many assertions like this, it is incorrect. Marx also used the terminology of “scientific socialism” (Marx [1880] 1998, 542).

  5. Anderson also misrepresents the “rigour” of the Communist Party’s “discipline.” In doing so, he invokes the standard “bogeyman” of Western Marxism, Stalin, and writes of the “Stalinisation” of Communist Parties and the “stifling” of intellectual endeavour. Anderson’s Trotskyite predilections—so common among Western Marxists—come to the fore here.

  6. The engagement with Western religion has a much longer history (Boer 2014), but my interest here is with the more recent Western Marxist “turn” to religion.

  7. It is not uncommon to find the suspicion of the state and national liberation expressed as a wariness of “nationalism,” which is seen to be opposed to Marxism’s assumed emphasis on class struggle.

  8. The initial name of the journal, established under the leadership of Carl Grünberg, was Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung (Archive for the History of Socialism and the Workers’ Movement). When Max Horkeimer took over as leader of the Institute at the end of the 1920s, the title changed to the more innocuous Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (Journal for Social Research).

  9. As Stefano Azzarà has observed (personal communication), the path for so many supposedly “Left” thinkers in Europe has led to overt support for imperialist wars of aggression. Apart from Habermas, we may also think of Agnes Heller and Slavoj Žižek, although neither counts in the least as a Marxist. On the right-wing and racist proclivities of “capitalism’s court-jester” Žižek, see Rockhill (2023).

  10. In the earlier work, Rockhill relies mainly on scholars such as Wiggershaus (1995), Wheatland (2009), and Jeffries (2017), but in the second study he draws deeply on that curious and uniquely US institution, the “CIA Electronic Reading Room.”

  11. Rockhill (2022) describes the Rockefellers as “one of the greatest gangster families in the history of US capitalism.”

  12. They also described Adorno and the others as “Scheißkritische Theoretiker [shit-critical theorists]” (Rockhill 2022).

  13. As Rockhill points out, Adorno calling the police on student activists and pressing charges against their leader was simply a continuation of a whole direction.

  14. We may add here the approach suggested by Griese (1987; see also 1981; 1989), who emphasized the parallels and reciprocal working relationship between Marx and Engels in relation to the natural sciences. Griese led the MEGA teams editing both Engels’s Dialectics of Nature (MEGA I.26, published in 1985), as well as Marx’s notes on geology, minerology, and agricultural chemistry (MEGA IV.26, publishe.d in 2011)

  15. Both the initial essay and the book will be published in English translation early in 2023. The first translation of the book into another language was into Chinese (Losurdo 2022).

  16. For a recent analysis of the continued avoidance of the question of racism by US Marxists such as Fredric Jameson, and an argument that racism is crucial for a Marxist-Leninist approach to class struggle, see Wendland-Liu (2022).

  17. “The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e. of the proletariat organized as the ruling class, and to increase the total of productive forces [Produktionskräfte] as rapidly as possible” (Marx and Engels [1848] 1976, 504; [1848] 2009, 52).

  18. Worth noting here is the fact that when a socialist country does manage to achieve significant development in productive forces, it also scores highly and is a major contributor to global justice (see Gu et al. 2022).

  19. Earlier, I put this in terms of “before” and “after October,” before and after a successful socialist revolution.

  20. We may see some of the results over these years from published works (Losurdo 1994; 2000; 2008a; 2012).

  21. The focus of this study concerns debates within a Western context. It would be another task to analyse how, for example, Chinese Marxist scholarship has approached and understood Western Marxism. The study by Chen Shuguang (2018, 10) indicates an initial rejection as not Marxist at all, a shift from the 1980s to deeper engagement, and then the assessment that Western Marxism is a tributary of the mainstream and is characterized by utopian tendencies and a “one-sided profundity.”

References

  • Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer. 2011. Towards a new manifesto? London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Althusser, Louis. 1972. Politics and history: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hegel and Marx. Trans. Ben Brewster. London: New Left Books.

  • Althusser, Louis. 1990.Liening he zhexue. Trans. Du Zhangzhi. Taibei: Yuanliu chuban shiye.

  • Ames, Roger. 2011. Confucian role ethics: A vocabulary. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, Perry. 1976. Considerations on western marxism. London: New Left Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, Perry. 2001.Xifang makesizhuyi tantao. Trans. Gao Hao, Wen Guanzhong, and Wei Zhangling. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe.

  • Azzarà, Stefano. 2021. The crucial role of Domenico Losurdo in the historical, political and philosophical understanding of the “Chinese way.” International Critical Thought 11 (4): 508–518.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Badiou, Alain. 2003. Saint Paul: The foundation of universalism. Trans. R. Brassier, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  • Badiou, Alain. 2015. Sheng Baoluo. Trans. Huang Binzizi and Lin Caohe. Guilin: Lijiang chubanshe.

  • Boer, Roland. 2014. The criticism of heaven and earth 5. vols. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boer, Roland. 2017. From Berne to Yan’an: The theoretical breakthroughs of Lenin and Mao. Crisis and Critique 4 (2): 60–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boer, Roland. 2021. Friedrich Engels and the foundations of socialist governance. Singapore: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Boer, Roland, and Yan Ping. 2021. Not some other -ism” – On some western marxist misrepresentations of Chinese socialism. International Critical Thought 11 (2): 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boer, Roland. 2023. A truncated Marxism: On the ideological structure of western Marxism. Fudan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. Online publication https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-023-00366-0

  • Bottomore, Tom, ed. 1983. A dictionary of marxist thought. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bottomore, Tom, ed. 1994. Makesizhuyi sixiang cidian. Trans. Chen Shuping, Wang Jin, Zeng Xiansheng, Gu Hailiang, Shi Nanfei, and Yang Zhongqin. Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe.

  • Chen, Shuguang. 2018. Zhongguo makesizhuyi yanjiu 40 nian: 1978–2018. Jiaoxue yu yanjiu 2018 (10): 5–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Engels, Friedrich. (1894) 1988. Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft. 3. Auflage. In Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe, 485–538. Berlin: Dietz.

  • Eagleton, Terry. 2011a. Makesi weishenme shi dui de. Trans. Li Yang, Ren Wenke, and Zheng Yi. Beijing: Xinxing chubanshe.

  • Eagleton, Terry. 2011b.Why Marx was right. New Haven: Yale University Press.

  • Eagleton, Terry. 2014. Culture and the death of God. New Haven: Yale University Press.

  • Eagleton, Terry. 2016. Wenhua yu shangdi zhisi. Trans. Song Zhengchao. Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe.

  • Foster, John Bellamy. 2000. Marx’s ecology: Materialism and nature. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, John Bellamy. 2017. The return of Engels. Monthly Review 68 (10): 1–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster, John Bellamy. 2020. The return of nature: Socialism and ecology. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould, Stephen Jay. 1977. Ever since Darwin: Reflections in natural history. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould, Stephen Jay. 1988. An urchin in the storm: Essays about books and ideas. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griese, Anneliese. 1981. Materialistische Naturdialektik und wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung der Arbeiterklasse. Beiträge Zur Marx-Engels-Forschung 9: 189–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griese, Anneliese. 1987. Parallelen und Wechselwirkungen in den naturwissenschaftlichen Studien von Marx und Engels in den siebziger und frühen achtziger Jahren. Beiträge Zur Marx-Engels-Forschung 23: 249–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griese, Anneliese. 1989. Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels über das Verhältnis von Gesellschaft und Natur. Beiträge Zur Marx-Engels-Forschung 26: 70–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gu, Yanfeng, Sujian Guo, Xuan Qin, Zhongyuan Wang, Chunman Zhang, and Tiantian Zhang. 2022. Global justice index report. Chinese Political Science Review 7 (3): 322–465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ho Chi Minh. 1920. Speech at the Tours congress (1920). In Selected writings of Ho Chi Minh 1920–1969, 15–17. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horkheimer, Max. 1996. Critique of instrumental reason. Trans. Matthew O’Connell. New York: Continuum.

  • Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. (1947) 2002. Dialectic of enlightenment: Philosophical fragments. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  • Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 2020. Qimeng bianzhengfa (zhexue pianduan). Trans. Qu Jingdong and Cao Weidong. Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe.

  • Huang, Guangqiu. 2016. Makesi Engesi guanxi de “tongyi” shuo–jiyu jingji jichu yu shangceng jianzhu sixiang fenxi. Beifang luncong 2016 (5): 160–164.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huang, Guangqiu. 2017. Makesi, Engesi jingji jichu yu shangceng jianzhu sixiang bijiao–“tongyi” guanxi: “jueding” neihan, “tongchuang hubu” guocheng. Shanxi daxue xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue ban) 2017 (1): 39–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeffries, Stuart. 2017. Grand hotel abyss: The lives of the Frankfurt school. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kadri, Ali. 2016. The unmaking of Arab socialism. London: Anthem.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kadri, Ali. 2019. Imperialism with reference to Syria. Singapore: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kadri, Ali. 2021. China’s path to development: Against neoliberalism. Singapore: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Korsch, Karl. (1930) 2008. The present state of the problem of “marxism and philosophy”. In Marxism and philosophy. Trans. Fred Halladay, 98–144. New York: Monthly Review Press.

  • Le, Duan. 1962. In the 1962 plan our industry must serve the development of agriculture with still greater efficiency. In The socialist revolution in Vietnam, 106–24. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1965.

  • Lenin, V. I. (1914) 1968. Conspectus of Hegel’s book The science of logic. In Lenin collected works, 85–237. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

  • Lenin, V. I. (1918) 1965. The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky. In Lenin collected Works, 227–325. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

  • Levins, Richard, and Richard Lewontin. 1985. The dialectical biologist. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 1994. Civiltà, barbarie e storia mondiale: Rileggendo Lenin. In Lenin e il novecento: Atti del convegno internazionale di Urbino 13–14-15 gennaio 1994, ed. Ruggero Giacomini and Domenico Losurdo, 11–78. Napoli: La Città del Sole.

    Google Scholar 

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 2000. Flight from history? The communist movement between self-criticism and self-contempt. Nature, Society and Thought 13 (4): 457–511.

    Google Scholar 

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 2008a. Stalin: Storia e critica di una leggenda nera. Rome: Carocci editore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 2008b. Wie der “westliche Marxismus” geboren wurde und gestorben ist. In Die Lust am Widerspruch. Theorie der Dialektik – Dialektik der Theorie. Symposium aus Anlass des 80. Geburtstag von Hans Heinz Holz, ed. Erich Hahn and Silvia Holz-Markun, 35–60. Berlin: Trafo.

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 2011. Liberalism: A counter-history. Trans. Gregory Elliott. London: Verso.

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 2012. Fuga dalla storia? La rivoluzione russa e la rivoluzione cinese oggi. Napoli: La scuola di Pitagora editrice.

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 2014. Ziyouzhuyi: pipanshi. Trans. Wang Dongxing and Zhang Rong. Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan.

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 2017. Il marxismo occidentale: Come nacque, come morì, come può rinascere. Rome: Editori Laterza.

  • Losurdo, Domenico. 2022. Xifang makesizhuyi chonggou–dansheng, siwang yu chongsheng. Trans. Li Kaixuan and Li Sailin. Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshi.

  • Lu, Chunlong, and Ting Yan. 2022. Revisiting Chinese political culture: The historical politics approach. Chinese Political Science Review 7 (1): 160–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lukács, Georg. 1971. Theory of the novel: A historico-philosophical essay on the forms of great epic literature. Trans. Anna Bostock. Cambridge: MIT.

  • Lukács, Georg. 1980. The destruction of reason. Trans. Peter Palmer. London: Merlin.

  • Lukács, Georg. 1983. Record of a life: An autobiographical sketch. István Eörsi ed, Trans. Rodney Livingstone. London: Verso.

  • Lukács, Georg. 1988. History and class consciousness: Studies in marxist dialectics. Trans. Rodney Livingstone. Cambridge: MIT Press.

  • Lukács, Georg. 1992. Lishi yu jieji yishi–guanyu makesizhuyi bianzhengfa de yanjiu. Trans. Du Zhangzhi, Ren Li, and Yan Hongyuan. Beijing: Shangwu Yinshuguan.

  • Mandel, Ernest. 1985. The actuality of socialism. In Socialism on the threshold of the twenty-first century, ed. Miloš Nicolíc, 146–162. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mao, Zedong. 1963. 1998. Statement in support of the struggle of the American black people against racial discrimination (August 8, 1963)”. In On diplomacy, 377–79. Beijing: Foreign Language Press.

  • Mao, Zedong. (1963) 2009. Zhichi Meiguo heiren fandui zhongzu qishi douzheng de shengming (1963.08.08). In Mao Zedong wenji, 328–31. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe.

  • Marx, Karl. (1853) 1984. The future results of british rule in India. In Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe, 248–53. Berlin: Dietz.

  • Marx, Karl. (1867) 1996. Capital: A critique of political economy. In: Marx and Engels collected works. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

  • Marx, Karl. (1880) 1988. Avant-propos. In Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe, 541–43. Berlin: Dietz.

  • Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. (1848) 1976. The manifesto of the communist party. In Marx and Engels collected works, 477–519. Moscow: Progress.

  • Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. (1848) 2009. Gongchandang xuanyan. InMakesi Engesi wenji, 3–67. Beijing: Renmin.

  • McLellan, David. 1977. Friedrich Engels. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLellan, David. 2017. Engesi zhuan. Trans. Zang Fengyu. Beijing: Renmin

  • Merleau-Ponty. (1955) 1973. Adventures of the dialectic. Trans. Joseph Bien. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

  • Negri, Antonio, and Michael Hardt. 2000. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Negri, Antonio, and Michael Hardt. 2003. Diguo. Trans. Yang Jianguo and Fan Yiting. Nanjing: Renmin chubanshe.

  • Rockhill, Gabriel. 2021. Critical and revolutionary theory: For the reinvention of critique in the age of ideological realignment. In Domination and emancipation: Remaking critique, ed. Daniel Benson, 117–162. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rockhill, Gabriel. 2022. The CIA and the Frankfurt School’s anti-communism. The philosophical salon. https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-the-frankfurt-schools-anti-communism. Accessed from 27 June 2022

  • Rockhill, Gabriel. 2023. Capitalism’s court jester: Slavoj Žižek. Counterpunch. www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/02/capitalisms-court-jester-slavoj-zizek. Accessed from 2 Jan 2023

  • Tang, Huangfeng, and Hao Wang. 2020. Strong political party and its social basis: The mechanism analysis of the Chinese communist party taking root in Beijing, 1949–1952. Chinese Political Science Review 5 (4): 457–487.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2011. The modern world-system IV: Centrist liberalism triumphant, 1789–1914. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2013. Xiandai shijie tixi: zhongyong de ziyouzhuyi shengli, 1789–1914. Trans. Wu Ying. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe.

  • Wendland-Liu, Joel. 2022. Marxism, U.S. democracy, and Lenin’s commune against capitalism. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 15 (2): 277–297.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wheatland, Thomas. 2009. The Frankfurt school in exile. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiggershaus, Rolf. 1995. The Frankfurt school: Its history, theories, and political significance. Trans. Michael Robertson. Cambridge: MIT.

  • Yao, Zhongqiu. 2022. Agenda of historical political science in China. Chinese Political Science Review 7 (1): 29–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, Yue. 2016. Makesizhuyi zhexue yu Deguo gudian zhexue guanxi de “Engesishi chanshi”–chongdu “Ludeweixi·fei’erbaha he Deguo gudian zhexue de zhongjie.” Makesizhuyi zhexue luncong 2016 (4): 184–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, Shiwei. 2022. The logical deduction of Chinese traditional political philosophy. Singapore: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj. 2000. The fragile absolute: Or, why is the christian legacy worth fighting for. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj. 2004. Yisui de juedui: Jidujiao yichan weihe zhide fendou. Trans. Jiang Guihui. Nanjing: Renmin chubansh.

Download references

Funding

No funding.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China, 59 Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing, 100872, China

    Roland Boer

Authors
  1. Roland Boer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roland Boer.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Not applicable.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Data availability

Not applicable.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Boer, R. The End of Western Marxism? On the Unravelling of an Ideological Structure. Fudan J. Hum. Soc. Sci. 16, 123–143 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-023-00369-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-023-00369-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation