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Andrzej Walicki

Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia 1st Edition

by Andrzej Walicki (Author)

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The aim of this book is to carefully reconstruct Marx and Engels's theory of freedom, to highlight its centrality for their vision of the communist society of the future, to trace its development in the history of Marxist thought, including Marxism-Leninism, and to explain how it as possible for it to be transformed at the height of its influence into a legitimization of totalitarian practices.

The relevance of the Marxist conception of freedom for an understanding of communist totalitarianism derives from the historical fact that the latter came into being as a the result of a conscious, strenuous striving to realize the former. The Russian Revolution suppressed "bourgeois freedom" to pave the way for the "true freedom" of communism. Totalitarianism was a by-product of this immense effort.

The last section of the book gives a concise analysis of the dismantling of Stalinism, involving not only the gradual detotalitarization but also the partial decommunization of "really existing socialism."

Throughout, Marxism is treated as an ideology that has compromised itself but that nevertheless deserves to be seen as the most important, however exaggerated and, ultimately, tragically mistaken, reaction to the multiple shortcomings of capitalist societies and the liberal tradition.

ISBN-10

0804731640
ISBN-13

978-0804731645
Edition

1st
Publication date

September 1, 1997
Language

English
Dimensions

5.75 x 1.64 x 8.75 inches
Print length

656 pages
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Editorial Reviews

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"It is impossible to describe the intelligence, precision, nuance, and sophistication of Walicki's exposition and argument in a brief review. The author is consistently forceful without being crude, and he maintains a high intellectual level while dealing with extremely controversial and even inflammatory subjects. indeed, the book is also an important work of historiography, because it discusses, often at length, and in an incisive manner, much literature in the fields of Marxism and Soviet studies. . . . In sum, Walicki has written another major and masterful book." -- Slavic and East European Journal

"This book is a product of mature scholarship which serves to confirm anew Walicki's skill as an intellectual historian and his gift for the felicitous expression of his ideas. It is to be recommended to anyone seeking to go beyond a basic introduction to Marxist thought, and it may offer fresh insight to those already familiar with the sources reviewed by Walicki." -- The Russian Review

"Walicki makes a significant contribution to debates over reasons for the collapse of international communism. A book of such monumental scope will arouse controversies among Marxologists, but this book is an intellectual tour de force, rarely equaled in studies of Marxism." -- R.J. Mitchell ― University of New Orleans

From the Back Cover

“Walicki makes a significant contribution to debates over reasons for the collapse of international communism. A book of such monumental scope will arouse controversies among Marxologists, but this book is an intellectual tour de force, rarely equaled in studies of Marxism.”—R.J. Mitchell, University of New Orleans
“This book is a product of mature scholarship which serves to confirm anew Walicki’s skill as an intellectual historian and his gift for the felicitous expression of his ideas. It is to be recommended to anyone seeking to go beyond a basic introduction to Marxist thought, and it may offer fresh insight to those already familiar with the sources reviewed by Walicki.”—The Russian Review

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stanford University Press; 1st edition (September 1, 1997)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 656 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0804731640
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0804731645
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1570L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1.64 x 8.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,899,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,086 in Political Ideologies
- #1,654 in Political History (Books)
- #4,101 in European History (Books)

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John C. Landon

Antinomies of freedom and necessity

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 16, 2002

This is the last of about ten Marx critiques that I read, if only because they often have facts unavailable elsewhere. After a while they are all the same, though not quite this one. Comparable to the work of Kolakowski in a perspective on Communism from the vantage point of those who lived this experience in Eastern Europe, this striking work is a reminder of the historical record, in four main stages, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the totalitarian outcome, and a recommendable challenge to overconfident Marxist houdinis to release themselves from the bindings of confused enterprise, with a detailed history not available in most major propaganda versions. No fan of Marx, still, few come as close to the core of the strange Hegelian-Feuerbackian notion of 'self and species being' that animates the almost crypto-Upanishadic quality of this concept of man. This is genuinely obscure, and genuinely profound, and almost the mistake of presuming the noumenal, in the antinomy that lurks near the shipwreck of the 'realization of being'.
The author wishes to explore Marx's conception of freedom, "a mode of existence in which humans are integrated and self-determining". One pauses, what's wrong there, this is the answer, no? It is factual to maintain that the form of economic society in question rarely releases the true self from the free economic agent. Here Marx's challenge to the future stands, irregardless, in the concealed tragedy of Hegelian slaughterbench teleology, unresolved in any philosophy. Perhaps it is the fuzzy undefined nature of the metaphyical basis that leads to the inexorable reversal and deviation from its initial conditions of the Movement, and the tale told is a gripping description of the stages of a tragedy, and the leap becomes a series of increasingly irrational circumstances, like a jacknifed truck in an accident.
Beyond the questions of philosophy, the book is an excellent portrayal of the sheer Murphy's Law quality of group organizational tactics, reified ideologies, founders and disciples, philosophy versus scientism, and the seeming inevitability of the claim on the future to do anything but lose control. The tragic outcome of revolutionary logistics. One must differ from the author to a great degree, we cannot indict Marx for this complex outcome. We can see that the reification of this resolution of self and species being is apt to turn into something unforeseen. The 'authoritarian' Marx seems too much in evidence, where the democrat of the 1840's is struggling with the definition of terms.
A critique of Marx, unless merely facile propaganda, must really engage the enemy, and risk uncovering more than a cardboard figue, and the real insight behind Marx's heroic gestures. The author invokes this Marx and raises his sword to slay the dragon, but it slips away, wounded, whether fatally remains unknown.
Gripping tale in any case. Back to the beginning with the debugger.

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Allan from San Francisco

Utopianism's Abuse of the Idea of Freedom

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 5, 2000

This is a book on the theoretical aspects of communist totalitarianism, not its practical consequences, but this does not diminish its value or its readability. Walicki does a masterful job in showing how a totalitarian mind-set is the most logical outcome of Marx & Engels' redefinition of freedom as the supposed "freedom" of humanity as a whole, instead of individual liberty.
In the name of putting these insane ideas into practice, Lenin was prepared to stop at nothing, launching wave after wave of terror, all the while deceiving himself that the terror was perfectly justified because the end result would be beneficial to mankind. Walicki bares all in this book, and demonstrates how Lenin adopted the NEP not to improve things by letting in a little reality, but grudgingly, in order to keep his utopian dream from collapsing.
Such, the author points out, is the result of believing that history has immutable "laws" and that certain theorists have succeeded in unlocking their mysteries and thereby obtaining absolute truth, which cannot permit itself to be questioned.
It's axiomatic that the most supposedly noble ideas typically have the most horrible consequences. Why? The more noble and beneficial the theory is, the more wicked its opponents will appear to be -- and what should done with wicked people?
If you have a sweeping, grandiose idea about how to save the world, do everyone a favor and please keep it to yourself. If only Marx and Lenin would have followed this advice, the world would have been spared a lot of misery.

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M. A. Krul

A mediocre and confused attempt at anti-Marxism

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 2, 2006

This book by Andrzej Walicki, a Polish liberal who's written much on the history of modern(ist) philosophy, consists of six parts. The first is about Marx, the second about Engels, the third about what he dubs "Necessitarian Marxism", the fourth on Leninism, the fifth on totalitarianism (Stalinism mostly), and the sixth on anti-Stalinism. The book is very thorough and rather dense and plodding at times, slightly in the style of Charles Taylor with its endless text exegesis and its slow and careful discussion of terminology. Nevertheless, it absolutely fails at its primary purpose, understood as a refutation of Marxist philosophy.

The first part, about Marx, is mostly an explanation of Marx' conception of liberty and its alleged consequences for the way Marxists perceive human individuality and the like. Walicki's expounding of Marx' view of liberty is quite good, but all his critiques fail utterly. Often he simply totally misreads texts, and many of his complaints are no more than "that's not individualist!" or the usual liberal expounding of negative liberties as the only real ones. Walicki seems to think Marx means to destroy individuality altogether to make man a species-being again, which just shows his lack of understanding of the subject: a species-being is always an individual being, but exists as such in, and by grace of, a collective, namely humanity as a whole: the two aspects of man need NOT be contradictory, but are made so by certain social relations! This view is so alien to Walicki's thought that though he grapples with the problem for a hundred pages, he never arrives at it.

The second part is a discussion of the differences, or lack thereof, between Marx' Marxism and Engels' Marxism. He makes much of Lukács early opinions on the subject, which were very critical of Engels, apparently ignoring Lukács' later withdrawal of these views (though of course one should be free to ignore such things, as one may be right at first and wrong later, I admit). Added to this is Brzozowski's old complaint against Engels, often repeated, that he "reifies" the processes of history too much. I do not agree with these views, but Walicki's explanation of them is fair enough, and Walicki pays (to my pleasant surprise) proper attention to the ways in which Engels explained the Marxist perception of society which Marx himself did not address as thoroughly, such as the position of non-productive labour, the role of freedom vs. necessity, and the communist future. He still makes entirely too much out of minor differences in style and approach between Marx and Engels, though.

The third part of the book discusses Kautsky, Plekhanov and Luxemburg. These articles, like the one on Lenin which forms part four, are largely biographical and add little new content. The "necessitarian Marxists" are so called by Walicki because according to him they all share the emphasis on historical necessity as a cornerstone of Marxist thought that later informed Lenin and his successors. Walicki portrays them largely as one-sided Marxists, whose views paved the way for the later totalitarian excesses of Leninism and Stalinism. Of course his main argument against their views is that they leave no room for his liberal conception of freedom, i.e. freedom from restraint, which seems to be the real foundation of Walicki's problems with and arguments against ALL Marxism in theory.

Despite this, his discussion of Plekhanovs polemics against Belinskiy and Mikhailovsky (who is often quoted with assent by Walicki) is informative for all. His treatment of Luxemburg, on the other side, is positively contemptuous, and is appalling reading.

The fourth and fifth parts are mainly used to establish Walicki's theory that Leninism and Stalinism are both totalitarian in nature, but two different kinds of Marxist totalitarianism. Lenin seems to be viewed by Walicki with some awe, and oddly most of the totalitarian aspects of his reign are reduced to certain character flaws in Lenin himself as explanation. Typical, in a certain sense, for liberal critics like Walicki not to use any kind of materialist explanation of such matters which might be more convincing. Walicki's critique of Leninism as an improper and one-sided understanding of the Marxist critique of parliamentarism is much better, and seems at certain points to hit home. However, his reliance on comparisons with the Russian "Narodniki" is a little odd considering Lenin's disdain for that group during all his life.

The article also goes into some depth discussing Bukharin and his contributions to Leninism, and Walicki views Bukharin as the most consistent defender of Lenin's own approach after Lenin's death, which I agree with (but he does not very well defend).

The fifth article on "totalitarianism" (mostly referring to Stalinism but not entirely) is good but flawed. Walicki rightly points out the vanguard party and Lenin's scientism make a potentially very dangerous combination for any practical policy, which is almost guaranteed to lead to certain excessively drastic measures. His discussion of Stalinism as a "popular religion" version of Marxism is quite excellent, and goes into many of the more subtle issues of Stalin's view of the world. The main problem is that it is little factual and because of this emphasis on theoretical issues tends to overstate Stalin's commitment to Marxism. Nevertheless, in my view this is the most useful part of the book.

The sixth chapter is "dismantling Stalinism". Walicki makes a strawman here out of historian Moshe Lewin's views on the development of Soviet society, in order to portray him as representative for Marxists who are (allegedly) by force of the circumstances of the USSR's collapse forced to accept the impossibility of doing without markets. This is of course gibberish in all its forms, and certainly not a good representation of Lewin. Most of the rest of this chapter continues down this Hayekian track, blaming the destruction of the Soviet socialism on the fundamental flaw in Marxism that it is so strongly opposed to markets and market liberty. Nothing in this chapter is of any value whatever, and it can be much better read in Hayek's own "The Road to Serfdom", which is shorter and more to the point.

All in all, Walicki's book is of some middling use as an overview of the various views on Marxism of various leading Marxists. It is in particular useful as a (negative) discussion of Marxism through the lens of the 'freedom vs. necessity' debate. However, as a critique of Marxism itself it absolutely fails on all points, and its extremely dense and plodding style make it hard reading. It is additionally entirely too long and rehashes old arguments from Berlin, Hayek, Kolakowski etc. way too much for it to be seen as a real contribution to the debate on Marxism. Not recommended.

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