This article argues that the 'permanent revolution' represented the dominant element in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' political discourse, and that it tended to overrule considerations encapsulated in 'historical materialism'. In Marx and Engels's understanding, permanent revolution did not represent a historical shortcut under exceptional circumstances, but the course revolutions in the modern era would normally take. Marx and Engels traced back the pattern to the sixteenth century. It is argued here that, in Marx and Engels, the proletarian revolution does (...) not enter the historical agenda when industrial capitalism reaches the stage of integral development, but immediately after the bourgeois revolution, even in semi-developed countries like Germany and > France where the industrial proletariat formed only a small section of the population. Marx and Engels worked out a political rather than an economic sociology of revolution. (shrink)

British neo-Marxism is a novel theory that emerged and developed in the UK during the period from 1950s to 1980s. It encompasses issues of history, culture, politics, society, technology, and outer space as it continues to broaden alternate critical research approaches. It carries on the intellectual tradition of British Marxism and is guided by the guiding role of Marx’s thought. British neo-Marxism has contributed to the formation of multiple neo-Marxist thinking paradigms with unique British characteristics, and its (...) theatrical implications concern the new historicism focused on cultural criticism, the neo-rationalist thinking of changing social orders, and the neo-humanistic thinking aiming to fulfill the reform of social institutions. Its innovation in the systemization of thinking paradigms is doubtless an effect of the paradigm shift in the way of thinking of humankind to change the social order. Our study of British neo-Marxism is of important theoretical significance and practical value for both the enhancement of research on Marxist philosophy, and the innovation in the Marxist thinking paradigm. (shrink)

Just as classic Marxist writers are included among the world’s top-class artists, Chinese Marxism has gradually nurtured a new tradition of modern aesthetics. This tradition serves to enlighten the people, cultivate their appreciation of artistic masterpieces, and thus establish a complete set of artistic systems that has been inspiring people to constantly reflect on and improve themselves. Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping, among other leaders, acquired a deep understanding of Marxist aesthetics and incorporated it in their policy (...) making. At present, while reviewing the artistic achievements in the past hundred years, we must be fully aware of the deficiencies caused by reductionism and shortsightedness in literature and art. In order to overcome those problems, there are some useful lessons for artists and writers: getting in touch with people’s concerns, depicting the lives they are familiar with, paying attention to national styles, deciphering the patterns of geographical aesthetics, and pursuing artistic individuality. (shrink)

Shows how Simone Weil developed a penetrating critique of Marxism and a powerful political philosophy which serves as an alternative to liberalism and Marxism.

Placing the work of key figures in context and addressing such issues as aesthetics, linguistics and the category of literature, form and function or literary ...

Since its birth in the mid-nineteenth century, Marxism has had a contentious relationship with religion and Christianity. From the Marxist critique of religion as the “opium of the people” to the secularism of the Soviet Union to the Catholic Church’s “Decree Against Communism, ” the two schools of thought have widely been considered incompatible. Despite this tension, many of the critiques leveled by both sides do not attack the real substance of their opponents’ ideas. As such, this paper sets (...) out to answer two questions: first, whether Christian morality and Marxist thought can be made consistent on the basis of their ideological foundations, and second, what a Christianity consistent with Marxism would look like. It finds that on the level of ideological foundation, there are important consistencies between Christian morality and Marxism. Given these consistencies, a Christianity aligned with Marxist thought is possible, and this paper will conclude by exploring Liberation Theology as a possible avenue for the actualization of that consistency. (shrink)

It's commonly understood within the academy that the terms "man," "woman," and "other" are socially constructed, and that their meanings are maintained by the current political order. But few thinkers have attempted to reconcile that knowledge - which is rooted in Marxism - with queer theory. The few who have, meanwhile, usually attempt to do so through issues of libidinal desire and sexual expression. In the Politics of Everybody, Holly Lewis argues powerfully that the emphasis on desire, though seemingly (...) innocuous, is actually symptomatic of neoliberal habits of thought, and consequently, is responsible for a continued focus on the limited politics of identity. Instead, Lewis shows, we should look to the arena of body production, categorization, and exclusion; only through such a reorientation can we create a politics of liberation that is truly inclusive and grounded in lived experience."-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

The article reveals ideological-theoretical, methodological, and politico-ideological basic principles for an adequate analysis of the specifics of modern Chinese (Sinicized) Marxism. The attributive features of modern Chinese Marxism (Marxism with Chinese specifics (the adaptation of Marxism to the Chinese Context, Sinicized Marxism), as the most effective version in world history for correcting and modernizing the axiomatics of the Marxist-Leninist theoretical model of social development, as well as improving the ideology of the ruling Communist Party in (...) order to increase the effectiveness of its domestic and foreign state policies, have been characterized by means of concrete-historical and systematic comparative analysis of the ideational grounds and basic socio-philosophical postulates, political and ideological prescriptions of the program documents of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China. Within the framework of this study, special attention has been paid to highlighting the essence and features of the Soviet and Chinese strategy of socialist construction, created to implement Marxist socialist and communist projects, as well as revealing the scientific evaluation of the differences between the political doctrines of the CPSU and the CPC in the interpretation of objective logic (the duration of stages, goals, and objectives of fundamental economic, social, political, and cultural transformations) of the process of constructing high-level development socialism ("developed socialism") and the further progressive movement of such a society to the phase of communism. (shrink)

Marxism was indeed vulgarized due to scientism in the 20th century, which even limits the development of Chinese social theories nowadays. This paper put forward the idea that it was serious misunderstanding to interpret Marx as prophet or inventor like empiricists who regard finding out eternal laws as the goal of science. In fact, Marx did not propose any so-called “natural laws of historical development”. He articulated that the only thing worth to do was to take note of what (...) happened before his eyes and to become its mouthpiece. Thus, to understand science in the face of social practice, to analyze everything historically and never to thrust “eternal” laws in any era should be taken as the core of Marx’s new science, which is very important to China today. (shrink)

Chinese philosophy was transmitted to Europe in the 18th century through Deism, organic philosophy, pure reason, absolute idea, etc., and was absorbed by modern European philosophers. Chinese philosophy has also, via German classical philosophy, directly as well as indirectly influenced Marx and been absorbed into his philosophy. There is a cultural-psychological reason for the Chinese acceptance of Marxism. However, due to the influence of Occidentalism, this period of history has long been neglected.

In this paper the author seeks to shed light on the political and philosophical context of the second half of 20th century in which he intellectually came of age. In his intellectual and political development the author distinguishes three main phases. He characterizes the first phase of his development as Praxis, revisionist, dissident Marxism and reformist communism. The second phase was post-Marxism and post-communism, while in the last decade of the 20th century the author defines his theoretical views (...) as non-Marxist. The author defines his latest philosophical-political standpoint as social democratic which, after his own self-understanding, comes closest to West European social democracy.. Autor u ovom radu pokusava da osvetli politicki i filozofski kontekst druge polovine XX veka u kome je intelektualno delovao i sazrevao. U svom intelektualnom i politickom razvitku on razmatra tri glavne faze. Prvu fazu svog razvitka autor karakterise kao praksisticki, revizionisticki, disidentski marksizam i reformisticki komunizam. Drugu fazu predstavlja postmarksizam i postkomunizam, a u poslednjoj deceniji XX veka autor svoje teorijsko stanoviste odredjuje kao nemarksisticko. Svoje najnovije filozofsko-politicko stanoviste autor smatra socijal-eko-demokratskim koje je po njegovom vlastitom samorazumevanju najblize zapadnoevropskoj socijaldemokratiji. (shrink)

"Mysl"‘ Publishers timed the appearance of this book to mark the one hundredth anniversary of Friedrich Engels's work Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Engels quite pointedly dubbed the theories which emerged in Germany in the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries as "classical philosophy." It was among the highest achievements of the world's wisdom, and it prepared the ground for the genesis of dialectical and historical materialism. German classical philosophy is the theoretical (...) wellspring of Marxism. (shrink)

Reference to the commented article: LIU, Zijie. The Marxist philosophical basis of socialist literature and art. Trans/Form/Ação: Unesp Journal of Philosophy, v. 46, n. 3, p. 255- 274, 2023.

The so-called "early Marx" comes in for sympathetic treatment from an Australian philosopher. Kamenka argues that Marx never lost his ethical vision of human dignity in future society, though "alienation" and related concepts are no longer relied upon in Das Kapital. Midway through the study an ethical position, based on the view that goods produce harmonious systems whereas evils cannot, is outlined and defended. Kamenka maintains that his "positive," non-normative ethic can be made compatible with a Marx purged of his (...) eschatology and of some Hegelian trappings. The concluding stigmatization of Soviet Marxist ethics as being "normative" is perhaps the weakest part of an uneven work. --W. L. M. (shrink)

Becoming Marxist offers a series of studies that take up the importance of philosophy for the development of an open and critical Marxism.

This is the first source-book for this cross-disciplinary area. It takes students through a wide range of readings from philosophy, politics, and sociology, to human geography, international relations, and feminist studies. Bringing together statements from leading twentieth-century thinkers such as Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Laclau and Mouffe, and with the editor's substantial introduction, this is an ideal teaching text, inspiring debate about the future of Marxism as a cultural theory.

Marxist Philosophy: A Bibliographical Guide.

The attempt to establish ‘Marxism’ as a coherent body of thought began, shortly before Marx's death, with the publication of Friedrich Engels’ Anti‐Dühring in 1878 and it was continued in the socialist parties of the Second International. The largest and most influential of these parties was in Germany, and it is there that the first significant Marxist orthodoxy was established. Almost from the beginning, Marxist orthodoxy was disputed by revisionists, who insisted that an approach to the study of history (...) and social change that claimed to be scientific should also be open to revision. Eduard Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism ([1899] 1961) is the best‐known early example. Competing orthodoxies emerged, the most influential being communism, under the leadership (later disputed by communist parties elsewhere) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the many varieties of Trotskyism. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Marxism Criticism Pragmatism and Practice Neo‐pragmatism and Neo‐critical Theory.

Bitterly anti-Marxist though it was, fascism now appears to have been in some sense revolutionary in its own right, but this raises new questions about the meaning of modern revolution. In a recent essay Roger Griffin, a major authority on fascism, challenges Marxists and non-Marxists to engage in a dialogue that would deepen our understanding of the relationship between the Marxist-communist and fascist revolutionary directions. Although he finds openings within the Marxist tradition, Griffin insists that, if such dialogue is to (...) be possible, the Marxists must give up any a priori claim to the unique validity of the Marxist revolutionary project. However, Griffin’s way of framing the issues proves too limited, first because his understanding fascism as revolutionary is not rich enough, but also because he too often forces his argument to make the fascist revolution seem the archetypal 20th-century revolution. The alternative starts with a deeper understanding of the basis of the fascist claim to be spearheading, as Marxism could not, a revolutionary departure appropriate to contemporary challenges and possibilities. In asking about the commonality of the fascist and Marxist revolutions, Griffin convincingly accents a certain mode of historical consciousness that seemed to warrant a totalitarian direction. But the historical sense he draws from Walter Benjamin, and then attributes to Marxism and Leninism, misconstrues the area of commonality. Through a different way of conceiving fascism as revolutionary, and of understanding fascist-communist convergence, we can challenge the Marxists more deeply — but also suggest the basis for a more fruitful mode of dialogue around fascism, Marxism and modern revolution. (shrink)

In ‘Equity and Marxist Buddhism,’ Tzu-wei Hung engages with the Marxist Buddhism developed by Taiwanese philosopher Lin Qiu-wu in the 1920s, brings this underexplored theory to the table and discusses a few merits and insights of the theory. Building on Hung’s analysis, this paper paper elaborates on the lessons and insights that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism provides for modern times. The first three lessons are distinctive points that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism brings to the discussion on combining Marxism and Buddhism: the (...) connections between the ethical and political, the responsibility for pursuing social justice and the nonviolence means towards social justice. The last lesson comes at the meta-philosophical level, focusing on how Hung’s engagement with Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism sheds light on the issue of diversifying the discipline philosophy. Overall, I argue that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism not only makes contributions to theoretical frameworks while providing a practical means for pursuing equity and social justice, but it also manifests the epistemic and moral values for engaging with under-represented philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Contending that Marxism achieved its unique position in part by adopting the content and functions of Christianity, MacIntyre details the religious attitudes and modes of belief that appear in Marxist doctrine as it developed historically from the philosophies of Hegel and Feuerbach, and as it has been carried on by latter-day interpreters from Rosa Luxemburg and Trotsky to Kautsky and Lukacs. The result is a lucid exposition of Marxism and an incisive account of its persistence and continuing importance.

In Queer Marxism in Two Chinas Petrus Liu demonstrates how queer Marxist critics in China use queer theory as a non-liberal alternative to Western models of queer emancipation, and in doing so, he revises current understandings of what queer theory is, does, and can be.