Nietzschean Socialism — Left and Right, 1890-1933

We are all, no doubt, aware of Friedrich Nietzsche's elitist contempt for the masses and their life-negating ressentiment morality.1 The enemies of social democracy certainly were and often made Nietzsche the focus of their attack on the left. As one conservative English commentator put it in 1909: 'John Bull is a patient just now. Nietzsche is the only doctor who can help him, for his greatest disease is socialism ... Dr Nietzsche either cures his patients radically or kills them.'2 Committed Marxists from Franz Mehring3 to Georg Lukacs4 stated their position as clearly. Nietzsche was both symptom and spokesman of an irrationalist post-Hegelian philosophy that reflected the interests of the bourgeoisie and capitalism in its most aggressive and expansive stages. He was the great enemy of the proletariat. In the light of all this, what possible meaning could the expression 'Nietzschean socialism' possess? The answer to this question will hopefully illuminate not only the remarkably diverse forms which representations of Nietzsche assumed and the protean influence he exercised on multiple and often quite unexpected areas of German life. It will also reveal a snapshot of a highly volatile political consciousness between 1890 and 1933, one which routinely regarded itself as being in crisis. For this was the period in which orthodox left-right distinctions were constantly challenged and blurred; perceptions of political boundaries were made increasingly fuzzy by activists and thinkers in search of novel modes of identification.5 Nietzschean categories played an important role in this process. They contributed to the general sense of fluidity, loosening traditional definitions and rendering political postures more open and elastic. These developments affected socialist self-understanding as much as they did other sectors of the political spectrum.6 Throughout Europe, the strict Marxist definition of socialism was challenged by

Aesthetics · Communism · Left and right · New Left · Political science · Politics · Socialism · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Engineering · Law · Philosophy

• Nietzsche, Decadence, and Regeneration in France, 1891-95

  Christopher E Forth•Journal of the History of Ideas•1993

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