The Crisis of Marxism: Ideology and Class Consciousness

Shahibzadeh, Yadullah

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_4

The Crisis of Marxism: Ideology and Class Consciousness

Yadullah Shahibzadeh²

Chapter
First Online: 29 September 2018

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Abstract

As European Marxists fail to follow the revolutionary pace of the October Revolution, they begin to think of the crisis of Marxism reduced from a theory of social revolution to systematic sociology or disconnected forms of criticism of the bourgeois economic order, state, education religion, art, science, and culture. For Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci the only solution to the crisis of Marxism is the return to Marxism as a theory of social revolution which involves itself in the existing social reality as a totality theoretically and practically. For Korsch and Gramsci, the dominant ideologies are concrete realities and practical constructions through which the dominant classes impose their leadership and domination on the oppressed classes whose only means of liberation from their situation is revolution.

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Notes

1.
Georg Lukács, History and class consciousness: Studies in Marxist dialectics (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994), p. 292.
2.
Ibid., pp. 290–291.
3.
Andrew Arato and Paul Breines, The Young Lukács and the Origins of Western Marxism (London: Seabury, 1979), pp. 219–221.
4.
Jean Hyppolite, Studies on Marx and Hegel (New York: Basic Books, 1969), p. 99.
5.
Lukács, History and Class-Consciousness, p. 3.
6.
Ibid., p. 19.
7.
Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008), p. 38.
8.
Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, p. 26.
9.
Ibid., p. 16.
10.
Ibid.
11.
Ibid., p. 25.
12.
Ibid., p. 29.
13.
Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, pp. 31–32.
14.
Ibid., p. 33.
15.
Ibid., p. 38.
16.
Ibid., p. 43.
17.
Ibid., pp. 44–45.
18.
Ibid., p. 52.
19.
Ibid., pp. 56–57.
20.
Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, pp. 57–59.
21.
Ibid., pp. 60–62.
22.
Ibid., p. 63.
23.
Ibid., p. 65.
24.
Ibid., p. 66.
25.
Ibid., pp. 67–68.
26.
Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, pp. 69–71.
27.
Ibid., p. 72.
28.
Ibid., p. 74.
29.
Ibid., p. 76.
30.
Ibid., p. 81.
31.
Antonio Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 37.
32.
Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 58.
33.
Ibid., p. 59.
34.
Ibid., p. 64.
35.
Ibid., p. 73.
36.
Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 74.
37.
Ibid., pp. 80–81.
38.
Ibid., pp. 81–82.
39.
Ibid., p. 83.
40.
Ibid., p. 84.
41.
Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 85.
42.
Ibid., p. 87.
43.
Ibid., p. 109.
44.
Ibid., p. 125.
45.
Ibid., p. 166.
46.
Ibid., p. 191.
47.
Ibid., p. 194.
48.
Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 196.
49.
Ibid., pp. 196–197.
50.
Ibid., pp. 201–202.
51.
Ibid., p. 203.
52.
Ibid., p. 223.
53.
Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 227.
54.
Ibid., p. 234.
55.
Ibid., p. 234.
56.
Ibid., p. 234.
57.
Ibid., pp. 236–237.
58.
Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Edited and translated by Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (Elek-Book London, 1999, Transcribed from the edition published by Lawrence & Wishart London, 1971), p. 134.
59.
Ibid., p. 135.
60.
Ibid., p. 140.
61.
Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Edited and translated by Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, p. 145.
62.
Ibid., pp. 150–151.
63.
Ibid., p. 316.
64.
Ibid., pp. 318–319.
65.
Ibid., p. 319.
66.
Ibid., p. 323.
67.
Ibid., p. 327.
68.
Ibid., p. 329.

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Yadullah Shahibzadeh

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Shahibzadeh, Y. (2019). The Crisis of Marxism: Ideology and Class Consciousness. In: Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_4
Published: 29 September 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-92521-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-92522-6
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