300
HERBERT MAR CU SE
A HISTORY OF MARXISM
MARXISM : AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY. By
G80~
Lichtheim. Frederick
A.
Proeger. $8.50.
This is to my knowledge the most adequate and most lucid
presentation of the development of Marxian theory and the Marxian
movements from 1848
to
the time of the first World War. Concentrat·
ing on Gennan and Austrian history, the book succeeds in tracing
and
analyzing within the framework of a changing society the variow
Marxist schools-revisionist, orthodox, centrist, etc.-the issues which
divided them, and the gradual transfonnatioll of the original theory
in
this process. The chapter on Engels, which shows the beginnings of
the
codification of critical theory into a universal "system," is the high point
of this analysis. The following critical remarks do not minimize the
achievement. They refer mainly to the last part of the book, entitled
"The Dissolution of the Marxian System," which deals (in fifty pages)
with the development from 1918 to 1948, and which does not sustain
the level of the preceding discussion.
In the preface to his book, the author states that his study "repre–
sents no commitment
to
anything save the critical method inherent in
the exercise of rational thinking" (p. 7). In the Introduction he
says
that:
to take a historical view of his [Marx's] work ... presupposes
a vantagepoint made available by developments beyond the
stage reflected in the Marxian system-in other words, it
assumes that the Marxian categories are no longer quite ap–
plicable to current history. (p. 15)
But "the historical view" does not imply any such assumption-and the
phrase "in other words" seems to cover up a
non sequitur.
It may well
be that the Marxian categories are no longer applicable. This is a
per.
fectly legitimate thesis-but it has to be demonstrated. Lichtheim has not
done so, and he could not do so because such a demonstration requires
an analysis of advanced industrial society and of the structural changes
which the development of this society in coexistence with the communist
societies has brought about- an analysis which is outside the scope of
his
book.
Its last part is no substitute for it. Here, Lichtheim gives hardly
more than a repetition of familiar cliches and accusations; the presenta·
tion of Marx's theory of the state is very inadequate and in itself con·
