[Marxism] Georg Lukacs as a Marxist thinker

["Graham M." <gkmilner@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Friends,
   The following paragraphs are taken from the text of a message sent last year 
to a colleague in the Socialist Alliance in Western Australia, who asked me if 
I was able to supply him with any information about Georg Lukacs, the great 
Marxist philosopher and literary critic.   In my view Lukacs' contribution to 
20th century Marxism deserves to be recognised, and I believe that his works,  
even where flawed,  should be seriously studied.

                                                                In solidarity,


                                                                                
    Graham Milner


   Georg Lukacs was a Hungarian, born of a Jewish middle-class family.   He was 
an established writer and literary critic before his encounter with Marxism and 
Communism.   He joined the Hungarian Communist Party after World War One, and 
was minister for culture in the short-lived 'Hungarian Soviet Republic' of 
1919.   He lived in exile during the Horthy period, and spent many years in the 
Soviet Union.   In the 1920s he became one of the most prominent spokespeople 
for the 'left' tendencies in the early Comintern.   His book, 'History and 
Class Consciousness', was published in 1923.   This work is quite famous, 
although it was not translated into English until the early 1970s, I believe.   
It is worth reading, as it contains some original, although mainly erroneous, 
ideas.   Lukacs offered a critical review of his own intellectual evolution in 
a preface to the 1967 edition of this book.   I re-read this piece only a few 
weeks ago, actually, and it is probably the best introduction you could find to 
Lukacs' biography.

   'History and Class Consciousness', like Karl Korsch's 'Marxism and 
Philosophy', was denounced as heterodox by the Comintern leadership - Zinoviev 
himself attacked it.   Whereas Korsch left the Communist movement, Lukacs more 
or less took the criticism.   His 'Political Writings' of the 1920s period have 
been published, and I used to have a copy - but I foolishly sold it.   I hadn't 
studied it, either, but I should think that some of those writings, like the 
"Blum Theses' of 1929, were probably quite good criticisms of wrong Comintern 
positions.   His short book 'Lenin: a Study in the Unity of His Thought', 
published not long after Lenin's death, is in my opinion his best political 
book.   I was wryly amused to read a positive reference by Peter Boyle to this 
book a while back in a talk about Lenin published somewhere, as I had found 
that, when I joined SYA/SWL in Sydney in 1973, Lukacs was regarded with great 
suspicion by some of the party leaders.   I think Mandel's first book on 
Trotsky: 'A Study in the Dynamic of His Thought', was in some ways an attempt 
to do for Trotsky what Lukacs did for Lenin.  

   As I indicated, Lukacs spent the 1930s in the USSR, and kept very quiet 
about politics.   But he was one of the first scholars to have access to the 
then recently discovered 'Paris Manuscripts' of Marx, and these manuscripts 
illuminated some of his (actually mistaken) concepts in 'History and Class 
Consciousness', while also highlighting the importance of the neglected 
Hegelian heritage of Marx and Marxism.   Lukacs in this period concentrated on 
literary criticism.   You probably know that he is widely regarded as one of 
the greatest literary critics of the 20th century, both in the West and the 
East.   He was a strong supporter of the realist aesthetic in literature, while 
not embracing the Stalinist concept of 'socialist realism'.   Some of his 
literary essays are brilliant, and full of important insights.    His later 
philosophical work embraced major studies on ethics and aesthetics.  

   I think it would be fair to say that Lukacs did trim his sails to some 
extent to suit the prevailing wind in the USSR and Eastern Europe.   I would 
recommend George Novack's fine essay on Lukacs in 'Polemics in Marxist 
Philosophy', if you haven't seen it.   But Lukacs came out of 'political 
retirement' in 1956 to be a minister in Imre Nagy's short-lived anti-Stalinist 
government, and was consequently in disgrace with the Stalinist authorities for 
a time afterwards.

   I believe that Lukacs was one of those 'public intellectuals' that the 
Communist movement has always had difficulty with.   He had a brilliant mind, 
but did not have the unbending will or toughness of character of someone like 
Trotsky.   But I think that he was quite sincere about his commitment to 
Marxism, and his writings are studded with gems - insights, parallels and 
connections that repay the attention of the reader.   I don't know if you have 
come across Leszek Kolakowski's 'Main Currents of Marxism'.   Some of the 
chapters in it are better than others.   The one on Trotsky is one of the 
worst.   But the chapter on Lukacs is relatively sympathetic and insightful, 
and I think that Kolakowski's three volumes overall are very well informed, 
although gloomy for anyone who wants to see a future for Marxism.

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