FAREWELL TO MARXISM? - 1

FAREWELL TO MARXISM? - 1

In coming to terms with the absence of revolution
in the West, Gramsci may have successfully
reconstructed Marxism but how are we now to
grapple with the headlong retreat of socialism in
the East? Just as capitalism generates utopian
visions of socialism so state socialism has generated
equally utopian visions of capitalism as the
radiant future. Surely, this latest triumph of capitalism
spells the death of Marxism? Not at all.
This is not the first time that history has threatened
to dissolve Marxism. Indeed, our historical analysis
has shown that the growth of Marxism has
depended upon such devastating set backs, turning
them into challenges that spurred theoretical
growth. German Marxism was a response to reformism
in the German Social Democratic Party,
Russian Marxism to the radicalism of the
Russian working class, Third World Marxism to
underdevelopment engendered by international
capitalism, while Western Marxism was a response
to the failure of revolution and to the rise
of fascism. (See also Lichteim 1961; Anderson
1976; Jacoby 1981.)
The expansion of Marxism's progressive
branches depended on maintaining the integrity
of Marxism's distinctive heuristics while being
responsive to the world it sought to change. The
degenerating character of Soviet Marxism, on
the other hand, can be explained precisely in the
denial of autonomy to the Marxist research program.
The emergence of a new belt of theory or
more likely a new branch of Marxism to meet the
challenge of the East -the break-up of "communism"
-must rest on continuing the reciprocal
balance between internal and external history.
In this concludiig section I briefly deal with two
contemporary tendencies that threaten this balance
-analytical Marxism and post-Marxism
-before trying to restore the connection between
historical challenge and theoretical growth.