Vol. 46 No. 1 1979 - page 149

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149
Lukacs was interes ted in the way th ese hi sto ri ca l and politi ca l
events in France affected the development of German phil osophy and
in the impact of each phase of th e French Revolution on Hegel's
thought. He showed how Hege l' s " tragic conflicts" with the realiti es of
the Fren ch Revo luti on repea tedl y fo rced him to rev ise his ideas. The
drama here is the drama of a man lea rning th a t he canno t crea te reality
in the image of hi s subj ective idea l and slowl y comin g to know the
obj ective wo rld whi ch , needl ess to say, is no thin g like his idea l.
Hi stori ca l subj ects are no t chosen a t random , even when their
interest is purely academi c. When the usual channels of political
express ion are cl osed-as they were fo r Eli za bethan drama ti sts and fo r
what Lukacs call s the litera ture of democra ti c humani st protes t in the
30s-writers look to histo ry fo r pa ra ll els to the present and veil topi cal
issues in hi stori cal fabl e. As Lu kacs po inted out in 1937: " the direct
and con ceptua l rela tion with the present which preva il s today revea ls
an immanent tendency
to
turn the pas t into a
parable of the present,
to
wres t directl y from hi sto ry a
fa bula doce t .
.. " (Lukacs' ita li cs).
The pa ra ll el between the Fren ch Revo luti on and the Russ ian
Revoluti on was already a commonpl ace of the left-wing o ppositi on
within the Russian Communi st Pa rty.
It
had been used aga in st Lenin 's
economi c poli cy in the 20s, and it was used by Tro tsky and hi s
suppo rters aga inst Sta lin in the 30s. The po int of the compa ri son was
that the socialist revolution had been betrayed . Like the French
Revoluti on , the Ru ssian Revo luti o n had merely overthrown feuda lism
to
es tablish Sta te capita li sm , in a p rocess whi ch drowned its bri ght
hopes of liberty and fra ternity in bl ood.
Lukacs used Hege l's chang in g phil osophi cal reacti ons to the
French Revoluti on as a pa rabl e fo r the changes in hi s own reaction s to
the Ru ss ian Revoluti on . Behind the exoteri c study of Hegel, Lukacs
reconsidered hi s own view of hi sto ry and the ro le of mo ra lity within it.
In
H istory and C lass Consciousness,
man 's fragment a ti o n and
reifica ti on in an a li en and dehumani zed wo rld were seen as evils o f
capitali st society whi ch the proleta ri a t would overcome. When Lukacs
still beli eved tha t the p roleta ri an revo luti on was "on the agenda o f
world hi story," he tho ught th a t revo luti onary acti on would recon cil e
man to hi s world , and rea lity to mo ra lity. But by
Th e Y oung H ege l,
Lukacs had rea lized tha t the a li en and dehumani zed cha racter of the
world-whi ch Hege l ca Jl s " pos itivity" and assoc ia tes with the Chri s–
ti an period-was no t so eas il y ove rcome. And he cr iti cized Hegel's
"revolutionary hopes fo r a radi ca l regenera ti on of society and state, a
regenera ti on th at will result in the a bo liti on of their pos itive qua liti es"
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