Karl Korsch and Marxism’s interwar moment, 1917–1933

Bibliographic Data

ID7094442
AuthorsNicholas Devlin (0000-0002-5836-5577, Robinson College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume48
Issue5
Pages574-593
Publication date2021-09-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of European Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01916599.2021.1975149
OpenAlexW3198311156
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited25

This article offers a major reinterpretation of the nature of interwar Marxist theory. It does so by offering a new reading of the work of Karl Korsch in the context of a network of ex-communist intellectuals. In Marxism and Philosophy (1923), Korsch responded to the split in the labour movement with a radical new claim to Marxist orthodoxy. Rather than engaging in Marx exegesis, he aimed to turn the Marxist ‘method’ on Marxism's own history. In the narrative he constructed, Bolshevik-inspired Communism appeared as the next logical step in the dialectic. But this argument rested on a historicisation of Marx's own writing that led to an unresolvable tension in Korsch's work that threatened to undermine its claim to Marxist orthodoxy. Once it is understood that Marxism was a political currency as much as a purely theoretical space of argument, Korsch's reluctance to resolve the tension one way or the other becomes understandable. This reinterpretation of Korsch's work challenges the ‘Western Marxism’ paradigm in which he has been read, showing that Korsch’s work presupposed a reading of revolutionary success and potential rather than defeat and that he did not advocate a turn to superstructural or cultural questions in the manner supposed

Aesthetics · Communism · Dialectic · Epistemology · Marxist philosophy · Political science · Politics · Reinterpretation · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political theory and Gramsci

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