Description
Book SynopsisThe philosophical and political development that converted Georg Lukács from a distinguished representative of Central European aesthetic vitalism into a major Marxist theorist and Communist militant has long remained an enigma. In this this now classic study, Michael Löwy for the first time traced and explained the extraordinary mutation that occurred in Lukács's thought between 1909 and 1929. Utilizing many as yet unpublished sources, Löwy meticulously reconstructed the complex itinerary of Lukács's thinking as he gradually moved towards his decisive encounter with Bolshevism. The religious convictions of the early Lukács, the peculiar spell exercised on him and on Max Weber by Dostoyevskyan images of pre-revolutionary Russia, the nature of his friendships with Ernst Bloch and Thomas Mann, were amongst the discoveries of the book. Then, in a fascinating case-study in the sociology of ideas, Löwy showed how the same philosophical problematic of
Lebensphilosophie dominated the intelligentsias of both Germany and Hungary in the pre-war period, yet how the different configurations of social forces in each country bent its political destiny into opposite directions. The famous works produced by Lukács during and after the Hungarian Commune-
Tactics and Ethics, History and Class Consciousness and
Lenin-were analysed and assessed. A concluding chapter discussed Lukács's eventual ambiguous settlement with Stalinism in the thirties, and its coda of renewed radicalism in the final years of his life.
In this new edition, Löwy has added a substantial new introduction which reassess the nature of Lukacs's thought in the light of newly published texts and debates.
Table of ContentsPreface to the New Edition
Acknowledgements
Introduction
I Towards a Sociology of the Anti-Capitalist Intelligentsia1 Intellectuals as a Social Category
2 The Anti-Capitalist Radicalization of Intellectuals
3 The Anti-Capitalism of Intellectuals in Germany
4 The Revolutionary Intelligentsia in Hungary
II How an Intellectual Becomes a Revolutionary: Lukács 1909-191 Lukács's Anti-Capitalism and Tragic View of the World
2 The Passage to Communism
III Lukács's Leftist Period (1919-21)1 Ethical Ultra-Leftism: 1919
2 Political Leftism: 1920
3 Left Bolshevism: 1921
4 The Problematic of the Reign of Freedom
IV 'History and Class Consciousness': 1923V Lukács and Stalinism
Appendix: Interview with Ernst Bloch
Index
