214
PARTISAN REVIEW
that the historical cause of Sovietism is Marxist ideology. Obvi–
ously the Soviet Revolution resulted from an unpredictable coin–
cidence of many historical accidents. The point is only that Marx–
ism did not need to be fundamentally distorted in order to serve as
a self-glorifying device for a privileged class of oppressors and
exploiters ruling the Soviet type societies.
EK:
But still, it is surprising to read in
The Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Bonaparte
those famous remarks against the state, where he
calls it something like a "horrendous parasitical organism"
swallowing society. I suppose it's only natural that Marx had con–
tradictions. In many of his writings there is a deep libertarian
strain . ...
LK:
Of course. After all, Marx was not the founder of Marxism–
Leninism. Marx's writings spanned several decades, and obviously
there are many hesitations, ambiguities, loose ends and con–
tradictions. We can find many things in his writings which ran
counter to Marxist-Leninist interpretations. And , after all ,
Marxism-Leninism is nothing more than Stalin's doctrine . Never–
theless there was a basic utopian idea through all of Marx's
development, that could well be used for the purpose that it now
serves . And it did not need - as I said - to be fundamen tally
distorted. We can take almost any problem among those that kept
him busy and find hesitations and contradictions : the national
problem, the role of the state, the concept of revolution.
EK:
While in the East Marxism is little more than a vestige of
ideology, in the West we still see it, if not flourishing, at least well
and alive . How do you explain the psychological roots of this per–
manence or resilience?
LK:
I think it is rather simple. After all , Marxism, as used for
ideological purposes , is extremely easy. You can learn it quickly,
and you have ready-made solutions . You know everything about
history without ever learning history; you have the key which
unlocks all the doors and you have an easy blueprint for dealing
with all problems of the world and one simple solution for all of
them. As Jean-Paul Sartre once said: Marxists are lazy; indeed ,
they don't want to be bothered with complications of history, with
problems of demography or biology, they want only the satisfac–
tion of being possessors of an ultimate truth . There is nothing
astonishing in that so many people like to have such a solution .
EK:
But if one looks at the long list of Kronstadts in the twentieth
century, there is indeed something astonishing about that.
