Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders - The Golden Age - The Breakdown [Paperback]

Leszek Kolakowski (Author), P. S. Falla (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 2008

Leszek Kolakowski’s masterpiece, one of the twentieth century’s most important books—for the first time in a one-volume paperback.

Renowned philosopher Leszek Kolakowski was one of the first scholars to reveal both the shortcomings and the dangers posed by communist regimes. He now presents, for the first time in one paperback volume, his definitive Main Currents of Marxism: “A prophetic work,” according to the Library of Congress, that provides “the most lucid and comprehensive history of the origins, structure, and posthumous development of the system of thought that had the greatest impact on the 20th century.”

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

From scattered previous editions, this volume unites the author's opus on Marxism, which he wrote in the 1970s. Kolakowski is a historian of philosophy and treats Marxism as such; that is, he does not address the history of Marxist movements, parties, and leaders. For those interested in Marxist doctrine, Kolakowski dissects it within a chronological framework, laying out its antecedents in Hegelian philosophy and varieties of socialism current in the 1830s and 1840s. Conceding Karl Marx's originality in formulating his precepts, seminally in The German Ideology (1846), Kolakowski subjects them to withering analysis, especially in their relation to Marx's claim to have discovered a science of human history. There is no mistaking Kolakowski for a Marxist, but his grasp of the interrelationship of Marxian concepts from alienated labor to historical materialism to revisionism is complete. Kolakowski also understands Marxism's propensity for schismatic development, justifying the author's description of this history as a handbook of the principal Marxist theoreticians. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Considered the definitive work on the subject" (The New York Times), Main Currents of Marxism is now in one paperback volume. "A monument of modern humanistic scholarship... It will surely not be superseded." New York Review of Books "Leszek Kolokowki is one of the world's greatest living political philosophers and historians of ideas... Norton have reissued his magnum opus, Main Currents of Marxism, in a handsome single volume." Timothy Garton Ash, Books of the Year, The Times Literary Supplement "...indispensable... an unmatched encyclopaedia of a major passage in Western intellectual history, but the enduring interest of this masterly volume does not come chiefly from the mass of useful information it provides. Instead, it lies in Kolokowski's devastating assessment of Marx's thought." John Gray, The Times Higher Education Supplement"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1312 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (January 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393329437
• ISBN-13: 978-0393329438
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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84 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A High Point of Intellectual History, December 10, 2006

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R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown (Hardcover)

This is an outstanding description and analysis of the history of Marxism as a philosophic enterprise and doctrine. Kolakowski's goal is a fair and lucid history of Marxism as an intellectual enterprise. This is a highly ambitious undertaking requiring familiarity with a huge range of writers and thinkers, ranging from famous figures like Marx and Hegel to obscure 19th and 20th century ideologues. Kolakowski also appears to be remarkably well versed in the secondary literature on Marxism as well. The breadth and depth of scholarship is remarkable and is matched by Kolakowski's lucid exposition. Considerably credit has to be given to the translator, PS Falla, for the fluent English. Main Currents is divided into 3 volumes, the first covering the origins of Marxism and Marx himself, the second devoted to the apogee of Marxist thought, and the last to history of Marxism since the Russian revolution.

Kolokowski begins in an apparently surprising place; the Neoplatonism of the Classical world. He points out that some of of the themes implicit in Marx have very deep roots. The ideas of man alienating aspects of his essence and then being restored to completion in a dramatic and catastrophic event are ancient. Kolakowski traces these ideas and the accompanying aspects of eschatology and soteriology through major philosophers and theologians of both the Classical and Medieval period into the end of the 18th century. He then moves to a brilliant description of the Hegelian - Idealist tradition that forms the immediate background of Marx's work. Kolakowski's analysis of Marx's wholesale modification of Hegel's concepts and his synthesis of Hegelian thought with the Romantic ideals of early 19th century socialism and economic ideas is simply the best description of this difficult subject I have ever encountered. He then moves through a careful chronological reconstruction of Marx's thought, emphasizing the continuity from Marx's earliest substantial work to the last completed parts of Capital. Kolakowski particularly highlights the key role of the concept of alienation in Marx's thought. The description of Marx is lucid and evenhanded. Kolakowski is very respectful of Marx's brilliance as a thinker and provides outstanding discussions of difficult concepts like Marx's concept of surplus value and his concept of history. Kolakowski's exposition gives a very strong sense of why Marx's system was so attractive to generations of intellectuals. This is not to suggest that Kolakowski is uncritical. Quite the opposite. Kolakowski's critique of key issues in Marx such as the concept of surplus value or the claims of historical materialism are ruthlessly effective.

The second volume covers the period from death of Engels to the Bolshevik Revolution. This is also approximately the period of the Second International. Kolakowski describes this as the "Golden Age" of Marxist thought, a period characterized by a diversity of Marxist thinkers and continued interaction of Marxists with other intellectual traditions. This volume has all the virtues of Vol. 1., exhibiting Kolakowski's remarkable command of Marxist and general philosophical history, his solid knowledge of European history, a fluid writing style, and his incisive judgement about the subjects under discussion. In the the first half of this volume, Kolakowski shows the interesting diversity of the Marxist tradition during this period. This includes both a variety of interpretations of Marx and also the interaction of Marxism with other philosophical traditions, such as the Kantian revival of the late 19th century. Kolakowski covers some figures not thought of usually as part of the Marxist mainstream, such as Sorel and Jean Jaures, as well as illuminating discussions of the Revisionist and Austro-Marxist movements.

The second half of this volume is devoted to the pregnant subject of Russian Marxism. Kolakowski provides a very nice overview of the relevant Russian intellectual history leading up to a detailed discussion of various Russian Marxists. This concludes with an intensive examination of the work and career of Lenin, who is presented as a mediocre thinker but essentially as a successful leader of the cult that founded the Soviet state.

The third volume covers the decline of Marxism as a viable intellectual enterprise. Kolakowski presents the decline as occurring in two different ways. The first and most important is the development of Marxism in its Leninist-Stalinist form in which certain aspects of Marxism were emphasized by Lenin to develop the ideology that came to underpin the Soviet State and its Eastern European conquests. Kolakowski argues convincingly that the resulting ideology was not a "deformation" or distortion of Marx but rather a logical though far from inevitable interpretation of Marx's doctrines. With the articulation of the Soviet state and the cult of Stalin, this process involved the impoverishment of Marxist thinking, disconnection from other philosophical traditions, and ultimate evolution into a sterile ideology used solely to justify totalitarianism. Providing an accurate historical analysis of this phenomenon required Kolakowski to read not only figures of real importance like Lenin and Stalin but also the painful but necessary task of thoroughly reading a number of minor Stalinist ideologues.

The second aspect of the Breakdown is Kolakowski's analysis of post-Stalinist Marxism including such varied figures as Gramsci, the School of Frankfort, and others. By and large, this is a depiction of an essentially decadent intellectual tradition though Kolakowski writes relatively sympathetically of figures for whom he has some respect such as Habermas and Gramsci. Kolakowski has a very evenhanded writing style but his treatment of some of these individuals is harshly critical without using hyperbolic language. His chapter on Marcuse is a textbook example of intellectual demolition without name calling. One of the most interesting treatments in the book is that of Gyorgy Lukacs. Kolakowski presents Lukacs as someone melding both aspects of the breakdown. Kolakowski clearly respects Lukacs as man of considerable intellect. Lukacs' judgements on Marx, notably his analysis of the role of Marx's Hegelianism, his emphasis on alienation, the need to interpret history as a teleological process, and others, mirror Kolakowski's own analysis and may well have influenced the younger Kolakowski. Kolakowski also demonstrates as well that the essential thrust of Lukacs' work was to provide a sophisticated defense of Stalinism, a morally and intellectually bankrupt undertaking.

Marxism as a vital intellectual tradition is probably, as Kolakowski argues, at a dead end. Still, achieving an understanding of the history of the last century is impossible without understanding the history and role of Marxism. The superb book is an invaluable resource in any effort to understand the events of the last century.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read to understand Marxism within a wide context, January 6, 2010

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Jan Doxrud (Chile) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders - The Golden Age - The Breakdown (Paperback)

First of all, Leszek Ko³akowski was a superb intellectual, philosopher and historian of ideas. After the Second World War he devoted himself to marxism, but after visiting Moscow he left stalinism and became a revisionist marxist. Stalinism as a subreligion within a religion (Marxism) condemned the heretic, no schism was allowed. Ko³akowski was expelled from the Polish United Workers' Party.

Now, lets go to the book that made Ko³akowski famous. The purpose of the book in the words of Ko³akowski: "to understand Marx's basic thoughts as answers to questions that have long excercised the minds of philosophers, but at the same time to comprehend them in their uniqueness both as emanations of Marx's genius and as phenomena of a particular age." Ko³akowski did not write a history of Western philosophy to understand Marx, but as he said "a brief account of the questions in regard to which Marxism can be described as constituting a new step in the development of European philosophy." Therefore Ko³akowski does a real genealogy of marxism, you can not study Martxism as an isolated ideology. "The phrase Marxism before Marx has no meaning, but Marx's thought would be emptied of its content if it were not considered in the setting of European culltural history as a whole..." Thus, Ko³akowski begin analysing the origins of dialectitic BRIEFLY (but not lacking of depth) Plotinus, Saint Augustine and the contingency of human existence, the concept of the "One" before and after Christianity and how can men can reach non duality or the union with the One, which in the followers of Plato is in one way and in christianity (influenced by Plato) in another way. The he examined interesting figures like Meister Eckhart and the dialectif of deification, Nicolas de Cusa and the coincidentia oppositorum, the Enlightenment, Rousseau, Hume, the Germans: Kant (Prussian), Fichte, Hegel (as you should know and important part of the book) and the Hegelian Left. Young Hegelians: Ludwig Feurbach (The essence of Christianity) and Moses Hess and his philosophy of action. Then starts the analysis of Marx writting (and Engel's) Marxism before and after the Russian "Revolution" (was it a Revolution?. Lev Trotsky, the marriage between Marxism-Leninsm-Stalinism. Also interesting the part about Antonio Gramsci, Györg Lukács and other "perhaps" less known: German Marxist theorist Karl Korsch (Marxism and Philosophy)and French philosopher and sociologist, Lucien Goldmann. The Frankfurt school is obviously included with some of their leading figures and former figures: Horckheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Fromm. The book finish with Ernst Bloch and Marxism after De-Stalinization.

If you want to understand Marxism you should have this book in your room and combine it with the original works of the authors. This is more a philosophical work than a history book about marxism. You should have a philosophical basis to read some parts of the book. You can read a really good history book about marxism and communism, better than Robert Service's "Comrades", its called The Red Flag (David Priestland)

50 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Marxiana of historical interest in a welcome, if somewhat flawed, new edition, April 14, 2008

By 

J. Pintar (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders - The Golden Age - The Breakdown (Paperback)

While a new single-volume edition of Kolakowski's Main Currents is most welcome, re-reading it, I cannot but feel it will be of interest only to the most ardent Marxologists (and perhaps the occasional trawler for spirited anti-communist quips).

The work is certainly not a good place to look for an introduction to Marx or Marxist thought. For those purposes, it is far too expansive, and dwells on topics and thinkers that have been rendered largely philosophically irrelevant over the decades since its completion. As a philosophical assessment of Marx's own work, it is neither particularly innovative, nor particularly astute, however eloquently written. To get a good sense of Marx's philosophical thought, it would be considerably wiser even for a novice to invest the time it would take to make one's way through Kolakowski's 400-odd pages of the first volume into reading an equal amount of the primary literature.

On the other hand, in spite of its length, the book's treatment of many Marxists, especially in the third volume, is essentially superficial, and therefore of little use to an advanced reader. For someone who has, for instance, a desire to deepen one's knowledge of Ernst Bloch, Kolakowski's witty and biting short chapter may be amusing, but hardly enlightening.

Finally, as a previous review notes, the English translation is pleasurably readable. However, what it does not convey is precisely the charming unevenness of the original. Over the time of writing the Main Currents, Kolakowski moved from being a slightly reluctant true believer to being a vitriolic apostate, and this shift is reflected in the tones of the original. Perhaps befitting the image Kolakowski has constructed for himself in the West, the translation air-brushes out such tonal blemishes -- as many of his current fans would be likely to view them. The cost of this is the loss of the historicity captured by the book both in its original language, and in several translations into others, like Serbo-Croatian.

In the end, Kolakowski's work is a testament of a particular time and a particular Eastern European intellectual milieu. That is a source of its enduring value, but also a limitation. Those interested in high-powered philosophical scrutiny should look elsewhere. Those keen on exploring some strange eddies of European history should be delighted by this imperfect new edition. It can itself be read, to an extent, as a testament of the time we live in now.